DipCABT, CABTi Practitioner member

George’s life experience with dogs began in 1988 when he begun training his first dog. He started with club obedience and then moved onto agility training. Unfortunately, George did not have the knowledge that he does now and trained with the outdated methods of that era.

George became hooked on training and agility and obtained four more dogs! He did very well and Flash (his first dog) went on to C class obedience (top class at that time) and won many obedience club competitions. Flash also did very well in agility and went from Grade One Agility to Grade Three in just over a year. Together they won the Millennium Interprovincial Championships in 2000 and qualified for the World Championships in 2001. Blue, one of George’s other Border Collies, placed second at the SA Championships. 

When George’s dogs became too old to compete; both he and the dogs went into retirement. In 2014, he decided to get another dog, and he, of course, started training. After being out of the training world for a while he decided to investigate if there were any new training methods. He read some articles and wanted to know more. 

George enrolled in his first training course in 2015, offered by Dr. Ian Dunbar, and found it very interesting. He then joined the Dunbar Academy and was one of the founder members of the Academy at that stage. His new dog had some strange behaviours, which started him on his journey of animal behaviour. George enrolled in JD courses and did short animal behavior and animal psychology courses. As they were short courses, they did not cover enough in-depth animal behavior, so he enrolled in the Pet Sense Canine Behaviour, and Training course.  This led him to COAPE International where he enrolled and graduated in 2019 with the COAPE Diploma in Animal Behaviour. 

George currently runs puppy classes, offers behaviour consults, as well as being busy with various dog-related projects. He also provides lectures for shelters or anybody interested in learning more about their pets. He is a force-free trainer and very passionate about animals and the education of people regarding the new science behind animal training and behaviour. 

George tutors and marks the Diploma in Animal behaviour, as well as presenting the popular ThinkingPets Introduction to Practical Dog Training, which is hosted by COAPE International.