About Me

Kathy

Hello, my name is Kathy, and my journey with dogs has gone on for a long time. As a teenager, my Mum and Dad fostered a dog from an old man who could no longer look after it; the dog's name was Dandy. Dandy was not to be with us for long and was a young, goofy, untrained dog. I took him on and worked with him, training him with no knowledge other than loving his little face, but Dandy taught me a lot in that short time. Unfortunately, my parents were not up for having a dog and Dandy was rehomed, at least a little better trained than he came. I love all animals, and when I was younger, I was always either at the stables with horses or walking neighbour's dogs. I worked my summers in kennels, cleaning out the kennels and interacting with all those dogs. In my late teens, I eventually adopted my own dog called Shelagh. She was a beautiful rescue shetland sheepdog. She had the gentlest nature and we went everywhere together and she got me through some hard times. Fast forward a bit and enter Whin, my first border collie and the dog who took me into the dog training business. Whin was a red border collie and needed a lot of behaviour work and training. Through Whin, I met a lot of dog trainers and people who helped other people with their dogs. Eventually, I was doing courses in dog behaviour and taking classes in my spare time. I completed the John Fisher course "The Human Canine Interface" and worked extensively with Tom Middlemass in the Borders, learning how to use play to reward dogs instead of punishment. However, my day job at this time was teaching, so I did not have much time to continue pursuing my dog-training dream. I did twenty-eight years of primary teaching, but after burnout and a sabbatical in order to rethink my life, I returned to the idea of dog training and behaviour. I contacted old contacts to discover that the world of dog training had changed dramatically and for the better. So, six years later, with two collies, an Advanced Diploma in Canine Behaviour Management with distinction (level 9 study) a Graduate Diploma in Applied Animal Behaviour with merit (Level 10 study) under my belt and many certificates in dog training, I am happily running Kathy's K9 Solutions and helping dogs and people across Aberdeenshire.