Testimonials

I first began looking for a dog behaviourist when I adopted my rescue dog. Having little previous knowledge, I chose Ali because of her extensive qualifications and professional website and I have not been disappointed.

Hansel had been a street dog in Greece up until the age of approximately 9 months of age and was consequently very nervous particularly of people and certain situations. Ali helped me to anticipate and interpret his behaviour and provided strategies to help to reduce his anxiety. Ali always uses positive reinforcement and was always gentle and kind, which for a nervous dog like...

My husband and I adopted Texas, a German Shepherd cross, in August 2016. We knew she was a nervous dog, but didn’t understand the full extent of her issues.

After a few weeks it became apparent that 30kgs of dog barking at every other dog in the world (even across a field) was not a manageable situation!

I was initially anxious about having a behavioural consultation, but Ali soon put me at ease and gave us some easy strategies to start our journey (as well as a report to explain what she should be doing) ...

As you know, I was rather skeptical of your methods when we first sought your help because I couldn’t understand how overcoming antisocial behaviour in dogs could be achieved just by positive/reward-based training. It seemed contrary to how dogs discipline each other and behave in a pack and also contrary to what I thought were the methods traditionally used by farmers and others to train their dogs.

Rather against my instincts my wife and I persevered, and it is now pretty obvious that what we have done (and we have worked very hard) has been successful – Tilly is making huge progress and has turned away from being a nervous and very antisocial rescue dog to becoming a delightful...

Mimi is a cat with a beautiful nature - loving, gentle, sociable and perfectly suited to a young family. As experienced cat owners we didn’t think twice about settling her into the household as a kitten and following the same toilet training regime as with our previous cats.

Mimi had a few accidents on the bed and sofa as a small kitten which we thought had led to a learned preference for toileting on soft furnishings. However, even once she was older with access to the outdoors we couldn’t understand why she chose the sofa over the garden or litter tray.

Ali was recommended by our vet who confirmed we’d tried everything...

Ali was recommended by another behaviourist as we had big problems with our border terriers. The oldest one Bill had become very reactive to other dogs after an extended stay at the vets. The younger one Stan had been badly attacked on the lead in the park so was a snarling, snapping ball of angst. Put them together and it was violent reactivity. We had tried to take on suggestions from dog trainers and it was getting worse. I had spent hours trawling the internet finding different ideas but again wondering if we were making it worse.

Ali was totally amazing and advised us on how to read certain situations and our dogs. Her philosophy is simple but the complexity comes from reading the dog's behaviour and knowing how to respond...

"Hi, I'm Rowley, a 10-year-old Cairn Terrier, and I was really frightened about going to the groomers - I hated going, got very distressed, and even though the vet gave me diazepam to try to make me more relaxed, it didn't work.

My people got in touch with Ali Scott, who came to visit us, and explained some things to my people that they hadn't really understood, and that has made a huge difference! Ali showed them how to play 'The Bucket Game' with me, and now they are able to do all my grooming and clipping for me, so no more frightening trips to the groomers!

Thank you very much Ali!"

We rescued Alfie & Charlie our 2 black cats 12 years ago. Alfie had always been a very confident cat and acts more like a dog than a cat. They had lived together relatively happily until 9 months ago when we rescued another black cat Toby. Toby is a much younger playful character.

Charlie our girl took an instant dislike to him and refused to come out from under the bed. Alfie although accepting of Toby was acting in an odd way and we were having to break up fights between the cats.
Our Vet recommnded Ali and she visited us at our home. Ali was so personable and really easy to get on with and it was so amazing to have someone with a different perspective come in and see things through ...

Let’s start by introducing Busby, he is my collie x rescue dog and the love of my life. He had a bad start in life, picked up as a stray, rehomed twice and then ended up back in the dogs’ home for 6 months before he came to live with me. Sadly it wasn’t long before his issues then started to show and we were referred on by our veterinary surgeon.

We have had a lot of valuable advice from Ali, with much needed knowledge and support. Thanks to Ali we learned to “speak” dog and understand Busby which was so much more productive than him trying to understand us! I now have a happy Busby but we are still moving forward ...

We rescued Max, a black Labrador cross aged about six months old. We already had two wonderful border collies Jacob & Lois, each from working farms aged 8 weeks when we bought them. Soon after we brought Max home we realised that we had made a huge mistake! He was extremely unruly - much more than just usual puppy behaviour, and Jacob and Lois were very unhappy and would not interact with him at all. In fact the tension between Jacob and Max was very worrying. After a few weeks, when I realised things were getting worse, I contacted Ali who was recommended by our vet.

Ali was fantastic! She offered so much insight and advice for all of the dogs together along with lots of intensive work one on one. I thought I knew lots when it came to dogs, yet despite having dogs all my life ...

I adopted a 10 year old Cirneco dell’etna; Bella, a breed of Pharaoh Hound from Italy. Bella was the companion of a very dear friend who died unexpectedly. However, I was soon to discover Bella came with a lot of issues – some life long and others due to her sudden bereavement and being re-homed.

The most serious was that she bit both me and anyone else who came too close to her and the other was that she seemed to not have been fully toilet trained and used my home as her loo. Alongside this she was terrified of weather – rain, wind, as well as thunder. She had an uncanny capacity to predict rain and would spend hours pacing with the risk of urinating uncontrollably.