Hi. I'm Jay, and the distinguished pup that you may have seen with me about town is Twitch.

Twitch was a nervous, fear-reactive dog that had 26 different triggers when I got him. He changed my life.

Thanks to him, I became a dog behaviourist, which is just a fancy way of saying that I'm a dog trainer that was trained specifically to read your dog's body language and to truly understand and be able to communicate with the dogs around me. I'm constantly going out of my way to learn more, train with other professionals and challenging the way I think about dogs and their behaviours, and ways to train so that I'm constantly getting better.

If you ever visited Rhi's Hair and Beauty in Leighton Buzzard, there's a chance you've already met Twitch (and me). For over two years, my dog got to know the people that came by, and almost every client could see the improvements in my dog's behaviour as we practised being more comfortable around people (in a safe manner) until he was even getting bellyrubs from adults and a few of the regular teenagers.

But that was not the beginning of his story.

He arrived from Romania.

The first day I met Twitch, it was when he was brought home by the charity that had rescued and brought him into the UK. Twitch was underweight, filthy, didn't know his name or anything about being a pet dog and was too exhausted to be scared of what was happening.

Within one hour of being with me, Twitch had been given his new name (he didn't know his other one and it didn't suit him), lots of chicken, a mild sponge bath and had already decided I was the bee's knees. Or at least was worthy of being allowed to rub his belly!

But there was something extra special about this suspected one year old pup.

He HAD a twitch.

Whilst living as a wild dog on the streets of Romania, Twitch had contracted distemper - a dog specific flu that dogs are usually inoculated against when bought or adopted as puppies.

Most dogs don't survive, or end up with horrific fits. Twitch, being the stubborn tyke that he is, just kept a twitch in his front legs from a little damage to his nervous system caused by the distemper.

He was terrified of cats, dogs, a variety of men, kids on scooters, and so much more.

For the first month living with me, not only was Twitch pampered, but he began his training journey. His first month - because of his health - he wasn't allowed to go walkies except to the vets or to visit other humans (and cats) that were now a part of his family.

His initial fears:

1. Deep-voiced men.

2. Cats (although I had noticed and started working on this whenever we visited family. Thankfully I was also the one to train the cats to be dog-friendly, so the cats could be trusted to react nicely to Twitch.

3. People wearing high-vis.

4. People wearing motorbike helmets.

5. Loud talkers on phones.

6. Anyone wearing red.

7. Bicycles.

8. Kids on scooters.

9. Loud kids.

10. Skateboards.

11. Runners / joggers

12. Men with beards.

13. Men wearing black and/or hats.

14. Skittering leaves / wind

15. Wet tyres on the roads

16. Lorries, buses, trucks and vehicles pulling clattering trailers.

17. Metal clanging.

18. Squealing car brakes

19. Walking sticks, blind sticks, closed umbrellas and brooms.

20. Larger dogs barking at him (especially those with dark fur).

And once all of that was resolved, Twitch then had a nasty experience of teens on mopeds and quickly grew to distrust all dogs due to Covid/Lockdown puppies that were not under control in local parks.

FEAR-REACTIVITY TOWARDS OTHER DOGS

So although Twitch had overcome his fears of big dark dogs barking at him and could walk past dogs on the same path as him, in November 2020, Twitch had one scare too many from over-socialised off-lead dogs whose owners had no control.

As a dog that isn't interested in making friends (due to his independent streak) this was further made stressful to Twitch because they kept running up to him whilst he was pooping. It's a very vulnerable position!

The moment Twitch decided he'd had enough, I (who normally used myself as a barrier to counter some of the no-manners dogs) had hurt my hamstring, and so couldn't be an effective barrier like usual. A (friendly) cockapoo ran up to say hi and Twitch moved to my side and growled. The cockapoo backed off, but I knew what this meant: more training!

Thankfully, I knew exactly what to do and once again worked with Twitch to rebuild his confidence around dogs (especially those off-lead). By January 2021, Twitch was no longer growling at dogs and was able to walk past them on the same path without issue.

In late 2024, his fear-reactivity towards other dogs returned after he was attacked in a local park by an off-lead German Shepherd, and became especially sensitive towards German Shepherds. We're currently working on his dog reactivity again to resolve it. As of April 2025, he's doing an awesome job and can safely navigate a busy, sunny market on the High Street around plenty of badly and well-behaved dogs. He's not at 100% yet, but he will be very soon.

Will he mess up sometimes? Sure! Twitch - due to his history and his mother being a stray whilst he was in her womb - will always have an inbuilt nervous disposition at the DNA level. This means he spooks easily, and if Twitch doesn't recover well, that will always mean more training. Maybe your dog's baseline is nervous too, in which case your pup's training journey could also have ups and downs like Twitch, and be a constant work-in-progress. And that's fine (as long as you have the patience and time to commit).

Want my help to train your pup?

I take on all dogs - all troublesome behaviours, and basic obedience. Fear-reactivity doesn't scare me.