I just wanted to write a little introduction about me and my wee business, and how it all began... The idea began when I asked my good friend Aimee at Cerberus Dog Training if she could help me train my wee puppy, Crumpet. For those who don't know, Crumpet was the last born of my other dog Maya's puppies. She had seven in total, and Crumpet was slow to exit the birth canal and when she finally appeared) she was barely breathing. She had pneumonia at 2 days old, and she had about a 25% chance of survival, but I was determined to keep the wee soul alive.
As Crumpet grew and developed, it became clear that she wasn't like the other dogs, that her development was slow, and she was what I would describe as a "wee wonky dog". BUT, she was determined, oh so determined! She fell over, she got back up, the other pups knocked her flying, she got back up, she tripped over her food, she got back up, she ran full pelt face first into a wall or a table leg (many times!), she got back up... she always got back up.
She visited our local vet, Inglis, a number of times and each time she went the vet confirmed she got better and better. We never did find out what was wrong with her or what caused her brain damage - the vet speculated lack of oxygen at birth or placental detachment, or potentially even prematurity. She is now diagnosed as mildly ataxic and is still clumsy with a bit of a head shake, but she's perfectly healthy, keeps up with other dogs, incredibly happy, finds joy in almost everything, and she LOVES the sound of her own voice, so whatever the diagnosis, we don't really care.
By the time Crumpet was around 4 weeks old, I knew I was going to keep her (although my husband didn't yet... haha!) and when the other pups left home at 8 weeks old, I decided it was time to officially start Crumpet's training, which is where Aimee came in.
I didn't want to take Crumpet to classes because she was a timid wee thing, very wobbly and would be developmentally way behind others her age. So we decided on one-to-one training, and I LOVED IT! I loved it because Crumpet loved it. Aimee had such a way of teaching, that training was always FUN, and this is when I decided, perhaps I could do this too!
So off I went to my IMDT training days, eventually passing their assessment day, and becoming an accredited trainer. This wasn't quite the start of Sits n Wiggles however, as I then moved to Spain to be with my husband for 6 months. During my time in Spain, I did a few additional training courses but it was only when we returned, that I decided to take things seriously and start something up. I racked my brains for business names, but none of them rang true with me. Then I started to think about WHY I enjoy training my own dogs and what I enjoyed about Aimee's way of teaching. It was because it was fun. Because it wasn't too serious. Sometimes we were training Crumpet to do important things like come back when called or sit nicely, but sometimes we were training Crumpet to do cute things simply for the sh*ts and giggles. OR.... FOR THE SITS N WIGGLES!! Alas! A name that rang true to my vibe. And so here we are!
I'll write a post soon on why I decided to focus mainly on scent training....but here's a little hint, Maya was was inspo for that!!
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