Charlie Clarricoates.
Born, France 1963.
I was raised in East Yorkshire and my first
experience of dogs was unusual, my brother had finally persuaded
our parents to let him have a dog, a German shepherd bitch
called Elsa. She was a young 6 month old rescue dog from the
local welfare group and the plan was to have her live in a
kennel outside in the garden. Needless to say Elsa was not
too happy about this and constantly whined, barked and howled
with the result that my brother would sleep in the kennel
to try and keep her calmer and quieter as the neighbours were
getting quite upset by the racket poor Elsa produced. Sadly
we had to realise that Elsa needed more than we could give
and she was rehomed! Understandably our parents insisted that
if we wanted dogs then it should be when we moved out, but
since that day I have been fascinated with dogs and their
behaviour and read every book, magazine I could lay my hands
on.
1982. My first dog was a handsome ( of course he was ) male
GSD called Taska, It was great fun training him but not so
fun on the courses available in the area, some of the class’s
were downright brutal and I left many schools refusing to
do what the Instructors insisted I do to my dog!
1989.I then joined a new club called Paradise for dogs, the
chief instructor was Andy Paradise who was really keen on
using fairer methods when training dogs, Andy took me on as
a trainer to help him and he was a breath of fresh air. He
introduced me to John Fisher. John had written a brilliant
book called Dog Wise, this book was about Training a London
parks patrol dog with ground breaking new techniques.
1990These techniques John wanted to see being used in dog
training class’s and so I was elected to hold a training
class using the techniques straight out of the book. It was
an unbridled success and we launched a new dog training centre
using ground breaking, effective techniques.
1991. I then became Manager of a thriving pet super store
and for several years advised thousands of pet owners about
diet and products for their pets.
1995. I was promoted to Joint Managing director responsible
for the running of the dog training centre and pet super store.
John Fisher also pioneered a new training technique using
dog training discs, he introduced them to one of my own dogs
and very kindly showed me how to introduce them whilst I was
learning about behaviour counselling at his practice in Little
Bookham..
1996. I was introduced to Peter Neville who was a member of
the APBC and after a few months he invited me to be an associate
of his practice.
1996. I was then invited by John Fisher to help form a steering
committee with the task of launching a new association of
Pet Dog Trainers, the APDT.
In 1998 I decided to start my own business and returned to
my premises on Crow hall farm, Charlies dog training centre
opened, a year later the hydrotherapy centre for dogs was
launched.
In 1997 I began writing for the magazine YOUR DOG and became
one of their panel of experts who responded to reader’s
about their problem dogs. I now also advise and feature in
regular radio broadcasts for BBC radio Cambridge.
We have featured in a number of television productions one
being a series called Anglia help-line and in 2002 we were
filmed for a discovery programme on dogs and training.
More recently we have been helping top dog trainer Colin Tennant
with a series of dog behaviour and training video’s.
Colin very kindly invited me to be a member of the CFBA, the
Canine and Feline Behaviour Association, this organisation’s
members are recognised by the pet insurance companies Pet
Plan and Pet Proteckt.
2003. New indoor training centre built.
More recently in 2003/04 we have agreed to train dogs to help
detect Prostrate cancer men for a Cambridge university research
project, it is interesting to note that the only other species
to suffer from prostrate cancer is, dogs!
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