Behaviour Sessions
Alex is taking behaviour cases from March 2026: please use the contact page to book a session.
Alex has experienced with a range of common and complex behaviour cases.
If, at any point, Alex feels an individual's needs are beyond her level of expertise, she endeavours to refer you to someone more suitable for help.
Approach:
Friends of Frank utilises modern, science-based methods to understand complex behaviours and facilitate lasting change.
Together, we will take an intersectional approach to accurately understand what is going on.
A holistic evaluation of your dog’s behaviour will consider: welfare needs; physical health; genetics factors and breed disposition; diet and nutrition – the gut-brain axis; life experiences – environmental influences since birth, past trauma and consideration for unknown history; emotional wellbeing and current psychological state; environmental exposure; lifestyle and, individuality.
Unwanted behaviour is often exhibited involuntarily as an automatic emotional response, so addressing the root cause is essential to achieving a lasting shift in behaviour by resolving the underlying distress rather than simply suppressing the symptoms. A personalized plan that honours your dog’s emotional needs fosters genuine confidence, and ensuring your dog feels safe enough to make better choices - restoring harmony to the home.
Session Duration:
As part of Cooperative Care, your dog’s emotional wellbeing will dictate the exact duration of each session. Please plan for 45-60 minutes, but be prepared that this may be cut short if your dog is displaying signs of stress.
Each individual plan is reviewed regularly and adjusted if required, to meet your dog’s needs.
Alex recognises that health and behaviour are reciprocal, therefore it may be necessary to have a check-up with your vet. The purpose of this is to rule out any injuries, conditions, or health-related behaviour changes, prior to starting behaviour modification sessions.
Cooperative care:
During behaviour modification sessions, you will learn how to recognise body language and communication signals. As you begin learning your dog's language, you will develop the skills to identify changes in your dog’s emotional state.
Having gained clinical hours with dogs as a General Hospital Assistant (GHA) at Blue Cross, Victoria, Alex recognises that a dog’s emotionality is impacted by their physiological and psychological wellbeing.
Alex encourages humans to reflect on the ethics behind ‘controlling a dog’, and demonstrates how to provide a dog autonomy and choice when it comes to their behaviour.
Using mutual, co-operative care, we will modify behaviour and enhance your dog-human relationship through trust and connection.
Techniques:
A combination of force-free techniques will be employed to address unwanted behaviour. These include: classical, operant and counter conditioning; desensitisation and extinction.
Unwanted behaviour, particularly reactivity and aggression, is often exhibited involuntarily as an automatic emotional response. Therefore, it is often necessary to change a dog’s emotional response to a stimulus, to alter this behaviour.
Desensitisation and counterconditioning can be used to neutralise and/or form positive conditioned responses to stimuli and therefore reduce unwanted behaviour.
In other instances, operant conditioning – involving positive reinforcement and negative punishment – can be used to teach alternative, desirable behaviours, to replace undesirable behaviours!
Enrichment schedules may be introduced to reduce undesirable behaviours. Enrichment offers an outlet for innate, breed specific traits – behaviour that we, humans, often find problematic!
Who can be a Dog Trainer?
Sadly, in the UK, dog training has no legal protections or regulations whatsoever, meaning that the industry is a free-for-all.
Unfortunately, many dog-parents seeking science-based help fall victim to fraudulent 'professionals' posing as industry experts, spouting detrimental 'advice'.
Before booking a behaviour session with any dog trainer or behaviour practitioner, it is vital to ensure the practitioner has a comprehensive understanding of modern, force-free, science-based dog training approaches.