Specialist in Dog Rehabilitation and Behaviour
IAN COOPER - DOG BEHAVIOURIST
As a Master Dog Trainer with the Guild of Dog Trainers, I specialise in rehabilitation of dogs with anxiety, aggression, handling, socialising, recall and general obedience problems. I do this by teaching you, the owner, how to interact and connect with your dogs and give you the tools that you need to build on your relationship. I am based in North Devon, on the edge of Exmoor, but am willing to travel to provide help where it is needed.
I have grown up around dogs, mainly labradors and spaniels and most of my life I have had dogs in the family. In the 1990’s I worked with a horse whisperer and then learned how to transfer those skills to dogs. Over the last thirty years I have studied how dogs work as part of a pack and how their behaviours are governed by their wolf ancestry. I love being around dogs and have my own pack of eight dogs who help me when I train. All bar one of my dogs are rescue dogs, mostly who were about to be euthanised for aggression.
Understanding how dogs work as part of a pack is the basis of being able to channel their behaviours into working relationships with their owners. Nothing gives me greater joy than to end a training session knowing that I have helped an owner and their dog bond more closely and deepened their understanding of each other.
As far as my methods are concerned they are neither treat based nor harsh. Using a combination of transferred horse whispering techniques and understanding of wolf park behaviours I do my level best to communicate with them in the way they do with each other. I then explain these techniques to the owner as I teach them how to communicate with their dogs in the language they will understand. This will always improve or resolve the behaviour because the dog will understand what you mean and how they need to respond.
“You don’t need to have a ‘problem’ dog to benefit from seeing Ian. We have two lovely young dogs and spent two fantastic hours with Ian yesterday learning more about their personalities and what we can expect of them, how to better communicate with them, and how to iron out a few ‘training issues’ as they grow up. We were given the skills we need in just the one session - no need for weekly classes with piles of treats and clickers. Don’t even think about it - if you have a dog, any dog, then go and see Ian.” R Daniels
