UNDERSTANDING. TRAINING. PROGRESSION.
Welcome to Pawsitive Connections
Force free modern methods tailored to your dog’s needs to develop better behaviours and a calmer dog.
Contact me today for a free 15min discovery call
About ME
Why entrust me to work with you and your dog?
I understand and I care. I am appropriately qualified, have both a wealth of personal and practical knowledge and experience to help you to help your dog lead their best life by working to prevent behavioural problems and to improve or resolve existing behavioural problems. When our dog struggles, everyday life can quickly feel stressful. I truly understand what that feels like and am here to support you navigate challenges in a non-judgemental way.
I am an Associate Clinical Animal Behaviourist with the APBC. Associate members have demonstrated that they have the appropriate level of Knowledge and Understanding for the professional role of Clinical Animal Behaviourist (CAB). They are now gaining the practical experience necessary to be assessed as a CAB and therefore become a Full member of the APBC. The APBC supports its Associate members undertaking behaviour consultations.
Dog Behaviours
What issues can I help with?
I aim to improve the quality of you and your dog’s life in a kind and practicable way, taking into consideration everyone in the family’s needs
- Holistic approach
- Improve quality of your dog's life
- Treating you and your dog with empathy and support
Aggressive Responses
Including dog/dog reactivity, dog/human reactivity, intra-household aggression, resource guarding, etc
Repetitive Behaviours
Shadow chasing, tail chasing
Puppy Development
Prevention is better than cure. This includes appropriate socialisation, basic training, house-training, mouthing, life skills & building confidence
General Issues
Including: Barking, jumping up, recall, basic training, pulling on leash, car chasing, toileting etc
Anxiety & Fear
Noise sensitivities, fearful and nervous dogs, fear of cars, fear of strangers, visitors, new things, separation etc
Rescue Dogs
Settling your rescue dog into life in their new home - getting it right from the start and helping create solutions if problems occur
Testimonials
What our clients say
I had been looking for a suitable behaviouralist to support me and my reactive GSD for some time and I am so happy to have come across Joann. It was important to me to find someone with qualifications who values ethical, science based training as much as I do. I couldn’t be more pleased with how our first session went! We accomplished so much more with my dog than I’d hoped. He generally lunges and barks at dogs from several meters away and can’t cope with unknown dogs approaching. With Joann’s coaching and support we managed to go for a very calm, pleasant walk right alongside her lovely dog. She did everything at my dog’s pace and was so encouraging to me which really helped put me at ease. Anyone with a reactive dog knows how emotionally draining, stressful and isolating it can be. I feel that she gave me the confidence and advice I need to help my dog work towards our goal of calm introductions with new dogs. I’m already looking forward to our next session
Joann has hugely helped our family to understand and deal with our fear reactive dog. His lunging and barking reactions to strangers have been escalating recently, causing us some anxiety but we now have a number of strategies to work with to help him feel less worried about strangers and be more confident. Joann clearly knows her stuff and could read our collie like a book. He took to her immediately. Her advice on a number of issues was enlightening and well received. I enjoyed our sessions and look forward to doing further training with Joann particularly Rocket Recall classes.
We have just finished a brilliant 5 week block of Puppy Class with Pawsitive Connections and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone! Have learnt lots, been so well supported and that is just me, Mabel has thoroughly enjoyed her Sunday nights. Thanks so much Joann!
I called Joann as I was concerned about my 5 month old puppy’s sudden change in behaviour and the vet being quite dismissive about my concerns. Over the phone her first instinct was that Ketchup could have Giardia. Joann also did a house visit and confirmed that he was in pain. She gave the children fun games that they could do with Ketchup whilst he was feeling under the weather, which meant they could still interact but he wouldn’t get overwhelmed. I contacted my vet again and asked for tests to be done and today I found out that Ketchup does indeed have Giardia. Hopefully he will make a speedy recovery once medication starts. If it wasn’t for Joann I wouldn’t have pushed for the tests to be carried out. I can’t thank you enough. I have also learned so much about canine body language during our time together.
Joanne is amazing. She is so thorough with everything and listens to what we feel our pup needs and actually listens to Storm to see what she needed. She taught us to read Storms body language and how to make her feel safe. Joanne, you have changed our lives but more importantly helped Storm and us change her life and, for that, we will always be grateful.