Boba the Patterdale Terrier

After purchasing my sixth TV remote, minus many shoes and several pairs of glasses I was at the end of my tether over the behaviour of our beloved Patterdale terrier aged 20 months.

It was a constant battle, walks consisted of us being pulled along by this tiny dog so became runs and evenings were disrupted and frenzied.

Every other dog owner appeared to possess the perfect dog, some of them enormous, whilst we felt nothing but shame and embarrassment at our inadequacies over controlling this little dog.

Then I found Sally's website and emailed her in trepidation confessing that we had made many mistakes, out of love for our dog, but mistakes nonetheless and was it too late to rectify things?

I opened Sally's prompt reply with trembling hands wondering if she would chastise me. Not a bit of it! She thought us brave for admitting to getting things a bit wrong and was anxious to help our dog asap.

We met her for the first time today and began our journey to being better dog owners. Our dog responded to her immediately in the most positive manner. She was honest with us about the problems and gentle, calm, softly spoken and somehow also assertive with the dog who adored her.

Sally never once raised her voice yet the dog did her bidding and enjoyed it! She taught us the correct way to train a dog and we didn't even realise we were actually the trainees because it was like chatting with a friend.

We have this evening enjoyed our first uninterrupted meal for 20 months and watched two tv programmes whilst the dog slept on the floor.

I have just climbed into bed, the dog is happily asleep downstairs, I'm looking forward to seeing him in the morning, I'm relaxed and rested and I feel 10 years younger. We look forward to Sally's next visit for ongoing training and feel so happy with the start of our re-education.

And all of this with not a word of criticism from Sally just a you can do it approach, a lot of smiles and, I think, a bit of Sally magic.