About your tutor
Puppy School Lancaster & Morecambe classes are run by Kelly Kane
Hello and welcome to Puppy School Lancaster
Kelly is a full-time canine behavior practitioner operating in and around Lancashire and Cumbria. Her hands-on experience began as a child growing up with 12 greyhounds (all at once) and other family dogs that seemed to gravitate to her and earning her a reputation as a dog whisperer. This led to many subsequent years of volunteering in shelters and projects all over the world that supported dogs and other species too. Whilst opting for kind and humane methods has always been a natural choice for Kelly, it wasn't until pursuing formal qualifications that the science behind learning theory really projected her career and training methods. Now, Kelly is a proud advocate of rewards-based training and force free methods and hopes to see more trainers follow suit. Teaching calm, security and resilience are important tenets of Kelly’s work along with understanding the emotional aspects of behavior.
Gemma: Puppy school associate
Gemma brings a warm, welcoming approach to classes and will quickly put you at ease.
Aside from her many family pets, Gemma also works as a dog walker in the community and steps up to any challenge thrown her way.
Gemma runs classes in Garstang and Fleetwood.
Puppy School tutors come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Apart from running our puppy classes, many have thriving careers in rescue shelters and some work as veterinary nurses, dog walkers, dog groomers, dog training professionals or behaviourists. What they all have in common is a passion for training puppies and a keen interest in animal welfare and behaviour.
Our Puppy School tutors and associate tutors must undergo extensive training before teaching Puppy School classes. This includes an application and interview process, six days of comprehensive theory covering a range of topics from animal learning to lesson plans (taught by founder and director, Gwen Bailey, APBC registered behaviourist), as well as three days of supervised practical work and a comprehensive correspondence course.
We monitor our Puppy School classes regularly to ensure the highest standards are consistently being maintained. Tutors are carefully overseen by Regional Managers to make sure they are using all the skills necessary to become excellent, positive, reward-based puppy trainers. Our tutors must uphold our Code of Conduct at all times and must complete a sufficient amount of continued professional development each year.
Puppy School is delighted to have been recognised as a Practitioner Organisation for the Animal Behaviour and Training Council (ABTC). The ABTC is the regulatory body that represents animal trainers and animal behaviour therapists to both the public and to legislative bodies. It is the only animal welfare charity that is primarily concerned with protecting the psychological welfare of animals undergoing training and behaviour activities. Kelly Kane is working towards accreditation with the ABTC but is not yet qualified.