Reggie

We adopted Reggie in the autumn of 2020 when he was 7 months old from a European street dog shelter through a UK based charity.

He’d had little interaction with humans and for the first 3 weeks he quite literally hid under a cupboard, only venturing out to eat when no-one was in the room. After talking to the friend of a friend who’d been fostering rescued street dogs for years, we realised we were in for a long haul. Trying to push Reggie too fast could have made him scared and become aggressive.

After 2 months he was beginning to get used to being around people and started interacting with us through play in the garden. By March he had morphed into a boisterous adolescent, playfully ambushing us when we went outside but still so petrified of the lead and harness and that we couldn’t take him out on walks to burn off his energy.

At this point we found Anthony. Through his vast knowledge of dog psychology, we came to understand that we had an overgrown puppy on our hands and all the behaviour that young pups normally get out of their system in their first few months was coming out in our teenage dog.

With Anthony’s sound advice, patience and willingness to take things at Reggie’s snail pace, we finally cracked it and took him out for his first walk in May, some 18 months after we adopted him. Since then, Reggie has come on leaps and bounds. He is a happy, sweet natured dog who loves his walks and this summer we have even managed a successful ferry trip!

Anthony’s endlessly positive attitude reassured us that we were still making progress, even when it felt like we were going nowhere, and he is continuing to work with Reggie (and us!) on more conventional dog training. Thanks Anthony!

Anne, Reggie’s owner