Training animals is far bigger term than many people think. It’s about empowering them and giving them a choice. It’s more like educating them. The question is, will we make that effort to educate ourselves? And it's not about judging one another and fighting with each other on who is right. As long as we continue to educate ourselves and let others do the same, we can massively improve the welfare of all the animals we interact with.

My trip to Seattle in July showed me that people’s kindness is extraordinary! By reaching out to people online I had the opportunity to learn from them and with them! Speakers gave me many ideas on how to improve my training skills and ultimately help more people and animals under their care. Here are some key points I learnt.

I’m learning from every dog that I interact with! All dogs have different set of behaviours and different preferences. What works for one, might not work for the second one at all. Sometimes you need to be very creative to solve a training puzzle (not problem!) Animals are my greatest teachers! That’s why I decided to pet-sit. And why not combine it with travelling and seeing incredible places?

Knowing what you want to do is a first great step but following it is a milestone.

I decided to go on a travelling journey. But I’m not going to stop learning and growing as a pet professional. I’m going to do some petsits and learn from every animal that I meet on my way.

Zoo animal trainers do extraordinary things with animals they care for. They are able to train voluntary blood draws, coming back to enclosure after being freed and many other husbandry behaviours. If they can do that with wild animals, I’m sure we can do that with companion animals too.

We’ve been led to believe that well-socialised dog is friendly towards all dogs. And even though it might be the case, this doesn't apply to all dogs. A dog doesn’t have to get along with every other dog just as much as we don’t have to get along with every other human.

Our dogs don’t use English (or any other human language) but they communicate with us through their body language.

We often think that when we give choice to our dogs, they just won’t do anything that we would like them to do. But from my experience, the more choice you give them, the more likely they will be to spend time with you.

During my training and volunteer work with animals I discovered that communication between us needs to be mutual.