Behavioural Referrals Veterinary Practice

Professional service to assess and manage difficult dog behaviour. Worked with them for 3 years

When we got our dog Buddy he was 11 weeks old and weighed just 0.8kg. He was unbelievably cute and we all grew attached instantly. We quickly realised that his upbringing hadn’t been as good as we’d thought. He hadn’t been vaccinated properly, had worms, diarrhoea and was passing blood. He became very ill. Thanks to visits to our local vet and a late night dash to an emergency veterinarian hospital he improved. Then he was able to be given all his vaccinations to allow him to go outside. Worrying so much about his physical health, his mental health and his key early socialisation so he could grow up to be a normal happy dog took a backseat. It soon became apparent he was experiencing behavioural problems and couldn’t cope. We eventually arrived at our wits end. We all loved him but his behaviour had become stressful and disruptive and affected every aspect of home life. From getting up to going to bed everything revolved around the impact on Buddy and trying to minimise anything that made his behaviour worse. Continuous barking, showing signs of aggression, anxiety, stress, it wasn’t fun for us or him. Only if you’re going through it do you know what it’s like. Fortunately our local vet put us in contact with Behavioural Referrals. Buddy is nearly 3 and a half now. I won’t lie and say there’s any magic cures, and Buddy won’t ever be a ‘normal’ dog, but he’s shown great improvement working with Behavioural Referrals. We’ve had regular home visits by both dog trainers and behavioural vets. He’s on medication now and the combination of the medication, the training we’ve had to enable us to train him, and the opportunity to learn how his brain works and be better able to read him and manage him has definitely helped. We’re hoping for continued improvement and a better quality of life for him and of course us. I know it’s a lengthy review but if you’re going through what we went through and are looking for help and wondering where to go, then I can’t recommend Behavioural Referrals enough. Everything is done with kindness, and trying to encourage the good behaviour and not punishing bad behaviour. Hopefully my review might be useful to someone out there who also needs help with their four legged family member.

While researching a paper that I was writing for a peer-reviewed veterinary journal, I contacted Sarah Heath of Behavioural Referrals, Chester, for guidance on the behavioural aspects of the topic (the use of canine recovery crates). We discussed the subject over the phone: Sarah was very generous with her time, and had plenty of relevant ideas to share.