About Us
Wagtails is run by mother and daughter team Ingrid and Kristina Elias.
Ingrid has been involved in dog training since owning her first dog in 1977. He was what you might call a 'steep learning curve' and resulted in a long term commitment to the local dog training class. During this time she developed an enthusiasm for Obedience. She also became involved with a local rescue organisation, where she assessed potential owners, fostered and rehabilitated rescue dogs at home, and provided follow up training advice once the dogs had been placed in their new homes.
At the tender age of 9, Tina got her first rescue dog and was able to join in the training classes with her Mum! (Yes, there are photos to prove it, & no you will not find them on the website!)
Over the years our doggy family grew to 7 and comprised a Labrador, Irish Setter, Rough Collie, Anatolian Shepherd, two German Shepherds and a Bearded Collie!
Following the demise of this generation of dogs we found ourselves with young German Shepherd puppies to train and decided to 'hit the books', as one does. This was when we became aware of John Fisher's Dogwise, the story of how he helped to train a police dog using only positive reinforcement training methods, shortly followed by Jean Donaldson's The Culture Clash.
This revelation prompted comments like, 'so that's how their little fury brains work!' & 'Why didn't I realise that?' and so began our hunt for more knowledge about these training methods, prompting attendance at several COAPE courses, APBC seminars, and Alpha (now Clever Dog Company) seminars, amongst others. During this time Tina decided she wanted to become a Pet Behaviour Counsellor went on to be accepted onto the world famous 'Southampton course'.
Without a doubt the most life changing course we both attended was a Gary Wilkes seminar on clicker training at which he had taught a 7 week old puppy to retrieve three different named objects within 10 minutes, just by clicking and treating! We decided then and there that we wanted to train that way, it was fun, fast and incredibly impressive!
Wagtails began in late 1997 when Tina began seeing behaviour referral cases as she was nearing the end of her three year training at Southampton University. In the summer of 1998 she attained her 'post-graduate Diploma in Advanced Studies in Companion Animal Behaviour Counselling', better known as a 'DAS CABC' for obvious reasons! Wagtails Behaviour Referrals was born.
From conducting these consultations, the need arose to offer a regular training group to assist owners addressing their pets problems with regard to people or other dogs in a class environment, and as a means of continual support for their behaviour modification programmes. We also had a great many 'training' rather than 'behaviour' problems being sent to us. The difference being that with training problems dogs simply do not understand what you want them to do. Whereas behaviour problems, normally exhibited by extremely fearful or aggressive behavours, are usually caused by dogs being too scared or confused to be able to listen to their owners, even if they did understand what they wanted them to do!
At the same time we realised the need for puppy socialisation classes to prevent the onset of behaviour problems in later life, so many of which are caused by a lack of socialisation with people, dogs and the environment at an early age. Hence Wagtails Puppy Playschool was established to provide puppies with the ideal start to life.
In 1998 our classes and teaching methods were assessed and we were proud to both become full members of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (UK), an organisation committed to the training of pet dogs by 'kind fair and effective' methods. All members have to keep up to date with new developments in dog training and attend regular seminars to sharpen their skills and develop their knowledge.
Since our move from Farnham in Surrey, to Fernhurst in West Sussex in 2008, we have expanded Wagtails to offer classes in the Haslemere / Midhurst and Chichester areas in addition to our original base in Farnham / Fleet.
