I have been so lucky that I have always had amazing animals around. 

Dogs and cats have always been there, along with many other species, their lives overlapping with each other, filling our lives with fun and joy, and sometimes challenges and heartbreak.  For me, one of the main pleasures is watching them all interact with each other, seeing what makes them happy and how they can be content and comfortable.  What choices do they make, how do they cope with life’s challenges and still retain their joy and enthusiasm for the next event? 

I have been hugely blessed, each and every one has shaped who I am today and how I view my work.  Animal behaviour has always been my life and my hobby.  How lucky am I that it also my career?  Such a privilege and an honour.  My hope is always that I can help people and their pets to feel more understanding, more happiness, and more joy together.

Other than the stick insects, I’ve only included the animals with names.  That means that I’m not even going to mention the ill-fated sea monkeys or endless tadpoles which came to us each year, on their journey to my neighbour’s pond.  I still hear frogs in her pond in the spring evenings.  I like to think that they are descendants of those tadpoles, from long ago.

I’m not going to spend long on the imaginary pets of my childhood either, except to say:

All of my bikes were, naturally, pretend horses.

My favourite books were about dogs who misbehaved and were misunderstood and then saved the family in some way.

Playing “Pet Shops”, where my friends were always customers. Because being an Animal Behaviourist, or even a Dog Trainer, wasn’t a thing back then.

When I was allowed to play with my brother’s Scalextric (and sometimes when I wasn’t allowed) I used to pretend the cars were two little puppies; racing around, crashing and tumbling over, needing me to put them back on track again. Funny, all those years later, I got my Scalextric puppies in Frank and Filey.