My name is Alexis Kay and I have owned five dogs, three of them Terriers. I also have a Labrador and a Red White Collie.

One of my Terriers, a Jack Russell, was an aggressive little dog, which is what brought me to obedience classes in the first place. In 1999 when l attended obedience classes with him we had to be coned off from the other dogs because he could not cope with so many other dogs around him and just wanted to fight them all. After lots of hard work we finally got him focused on a toy. This one thing changed his whole life. He could suddenly cope with other dogs around him and could go off lead and run free. The introduction of the toy had changed him and l was finally in control. He was taught to work for his toy but did still have the odd occasion when he still wanted to take on the world.

I currently have three dogs, a Parsons Russell terrier called Max, a Labrador called Poppy and a Red and White collie called Ruby. They have all attended obedience classes. Max passed his bronze, silver and gold in the Kennel Club Good Citizen Scheme by the age of 1 year. We continued to attend obedience classes until we were introduced to agility, then that was it! We were bitten by that crazy bug called Agility.

I have been training at Devon Dogs since March 2007 with Ruby, who was a shy nervous little collie, but has improved with a lot of hard work and help from Lauren to be a more confident dog. Ruby is only 15th months old, we still have got a lot hard work to do with her, but hope to compete with her towards the end of the year. Max has competed in Agility since 2004. He loves it so much he can’t contain himself. He is currently being retrained on his contacts by Lauren. Last season Lauren advised me to pull him out of agility and concentrate on jumping, which was hard for me, but paid of in the end with him gaining nine 1st places in UKA and three 1st places in Kennel Club.

Then there is Poppy! She is rescue Labrador only 18in in height, but adorable. She loves everybody but only if they have food! Poppy also competes in Agility and does quite well in the ABC classes. she loves to go along to Lauren’s classes where she eat all the titbits  from the floor and can’t wait to do her hand touches as she has worked out “that’s easy food! The quicker I am the more food I get”. Typical Lab, thinks only of her stomach.

It’s been a great opportunity to train and work with Lauren. She’s always got lots of new ideas and we will work together to try and solve any of your obedience problems.