“Before I took Ludo to Ingrid I had a list as long as my arm of ‘incidents’ from running away to broken bones (he ran away, I got two broken bones in my hand!). I was at the end of my tether and he just would not see me as pack leader whatever I did.
I did the usual things, puppy training class, books, videos but nothing seemed to work. Then a colleague found Ingrid and passed on her details. I was a bit sceptical at the start, and didn’t know whether to try her, then Ludo did one of his “I’m not listening and ran away”, but this time out to a busy main road, so I thought this is it I need to do something!
Stage 1 – when we arrived, Ludo was barking, jumping and pulling on his lead, a proper handful. Within the hour we had him calmer and walking to heel (most of the time). Don’t get me wrong this is not a quick fix, for two weeks Ludo and I kept to Ingrid’s Stage 1 routine, but when I went back the change was noticeable, more to Ingrid than me, but I am with him all the time so not so easy to see the improvements, and he likes to please the teacher!!
Stage 2 – Now Ludo is responding to commands, sometimes straight away, some in his own in his time, again we need to put the work in. If you had told me a month ago that he would walk to heel without a lead, I would never had believed it. Now the work at home to put Stage two into practice doesn’t always go to plan, Ludo had other ideas! But I have learnt to stay calm but stern, probably as hard for me as sitting still is to Ludo!
Stage 3 – I found this stage hard, trusting him not to run off, he does have a track record of it, and although he did run off once, it was easier to get him back and in time I hope these episodes will get few and far between.
Ingrid was always at the end of the phone, and email, if I was having a wobble or Ludo was giving me a hard time! Sometimes all you need is someone to say, keep going, you are doing the right thing.
The thing I would say is I wish I had known Ingrid earlier, I think Ludo would have benefited from having the one on one sessions rather than trying to socialise and train him too early, before he had learned the basic.
I would not hesitate to recommend Ingrid, she has helped turn Ludo around and I didn’t think that was possible. Thank you.
Mandy & Ludo
