11/11/2024
🎉I did it🎉
After 2 years of work and writing over 45k words, I've finally finished my Level 4 Diploma in Canine Welfare, Training and Behaviour with an incredible average of 93%.
I'm ridiculously proud of myself. 10 years ago I dropped out my physics degree because studying was impossible with my mental illness. I thought I'd never be well enough to do any type of education again. And here I am - proving myself wrong.
But I didn't just do the course for my own self-confidence. I did it because dog training is a science and there's so much to learn. I care about you and your dogs and I have the responsibility to ensure I give you the most effective, most ethical and most up-to-date advice I can. Because that's how you'll get the best outcomes from your training.
Hattie has been an amazing help throughout my course. Not only has she regularly come to interrupt me (forcing me to take breaks to play with her), she's also been an incredible demo dog. She's helped me demonstrate teaching different behaviours, walk and trotted up and down for a gait analysis and was the star of two separate videos where I had to interpret dog body language.
Hattie's my best friend, my study buddy and my motivation to keep going. Every time I struggled and wanted to give up I looked at her snoozing next to me and she reminded me why I was doing the course.
This isn't the end of my education. I'm going to be taking a break for 6 months-ish because I'm exhausted and I need to breathe. My next step is to do a Level 5 course and eventually a Level 6 so I can be a behaviourist. I want to be able to help dogs like my sweet anxious girl. I want to help them be as happy as Hattie is.