Sussex Dogs Reviews

Training a puppy takes work and dedication but with James’ help it isn’t complicated. He understands both dogs and people. He teaches you to teach your puppy to be a great, confident, independent companion. James observes and lets you know how to adjust your actions to align with the principles that encourage your puppy’s best development. I have felt very supported in these sessions with James. He’s given me the tools to make the best of my puppy and the dog she is fast becoming. I strongly recommend James to anyone who wants their dog to be the one they dreamed of!

Working with James has given us so much confidence with our reactive cocker spaniel, Billy, and I now feel much better prepared for situations that arise when out and about. Billy can be unpredictable with new situations and it had got to the point that I felt unable to take him to certain places at certain times for fear of seeing dogs that would trigger him, or be in situations that he would prompt his reactivity. We didn’t feel comfortable having new people in the house for fear of his reaction, but thankfully that is no longer the case! James has helped us to understand Billy’s needs and how to work with him to lower his stress levels and teach him how to handle situations that might trigger him. The changes that we’ve seen after each session have been so positive and I feel that James has given us the tools to move forward in an educated, constructive way, to ensure that Billy has a happy, fulfilled life. Thank you James! Pip, Rich and Billy

James is the first real dog whisperer I have met. After having spent money on dog trainers who were unable to help my dog, I was so grateful to meet James. You can tell he loves dogs and cares about their wellbeing. James is highly professional and very compassionate about his job. He has superb knowledge of dog psychology and training techniques and has been absolutely brilliant from the start of the course. James could instantly understand my rescue dog Logan's behaviour without me giving him my dog's background information. His assessment of Logan was very helpful and spot on! James has educated me and given me the tools to train Logan and I feel very confident and have already seen a change in Logan after the first few training sessions. James is very kind and patient and has a great sense of humour. During our sessions James explained everything in a way which was easy to understand and showed me easy-to-implement training methods. I feel the that the training plan he created for us is very effective. I am very grateful for all his help and support. James has also been very flexible when arranging the training sessions. He will go the extra mile for you and your dog and offer you very helpful practical training skills. I highly recommend James. Thank you James for everything you have done for me and Logan. I feel very positive after our training course with you.

James is the ultimate dog whisperer. Training our rescue has been hard work but is achieving results. James has given us the skills to make significant progress with our rescue dog Buddy. His approach is more about understanding your dog's needs and triggers and he provides clear and concise guidance. With these new found skills Buddy's temperament and confidence is growing daily. We will definitely be asking James to return later in the year to add to our skillset. Thank you James.

I contacted James at the beginning of the year to help me with my anxious rescue spaniel. I had tried a few different trainers and methods before, but James' training has really hit the spot. I really liked his gentle and kind approach, plus the bespoke and individual way he treats each dog and owner. He clearly has a huge amount of knowledge into canine psychology and behaviour and communicates this in simple terms so it's understandable. Over the course of a few months, with a lot of hard work and training, my dog is so much calmer and better able to cope with life. He can regulate his emotions, calm himself down and just seems so much happier and more relaxed in himself. I can't thank James enough - it's been a real game-changer! I highly recommend James and his training to anyone who would like to better understand their dog. Thank you!

As first time dog owners having a puppy in our home was daunting to say the least. The sessions we had with James gave us a thorough scientific insight into how a dogs brain develops and how to use that knowledge to ‘grow a dog’ (James’ words). Our lurcher, Mooki, adored him and was very responsive to his methods. James has given us (and Mooki) a very solid grounding upon which we can build with confidence. He certainly is a dog whisperer.

Our recent dog training sessions with James for our dogs Millie and Milo were fantastic. His approach to dog training has been a different experience for us compared to trainers in the past. James is extremely knowledgeable in his field and we enjoyed his theoretical approach, which helped us to better understand our dog's behaviours and how to help them more effectively. James made us feel incredibly supported throughout the training process and offered help and assistance beyond our scheduled sessions if we ever had any questions. We would highly recommend James for his expertise, guidance and dedication to helping us and our dogs. Millie and Milo would also like to say a big thank you to you James.

Sussex Dogs have given us the tools we need to help our dog Freddie, return to his happy, confident self after finding the world a scary place, especially other dogs, people and traffic. It has been a lot of commitment and we still have work to do but with support from Sussex Dogs we have embraced a new way of living with our lovely spaniel. Thank you so much.

Working with James was fantastic and really collaborative - felt I learned so much and was given the tools to implement it too. Its made a huge difference to my dogs happiness

Although I live a small village this puppy arrived with lots of anxiety and confusion. People, dogs, cars and oh no those big tractors sent her wild with fear. James helped her greatly. First by explaining what was going on in her brain and then by providing practical measures to move her into a safe space for her mental being. I think he helped me more by enabling me to focus on positive interactions with her. Highly recommended!

James is just the most fantastic trainer of dogs and people! I cannot recommend him highly enough. He has completely turned things around for us with Rumpus. We were struggling badly in developing a recall - any sort of recall let alone a reliable one… His behaviour would become out of control when things got exciting and taking him out had become really daunting and stressful. James explained in a straightforward and easy to understand way about dog psychology and behaviour so that we understood why Rumpus was behaving in that way. He created an achievable training plan for us all. We are so pleased with the results and the positive change this has had on our relationship with Rumpus and the improvement in his recall. James has given us the tools and knowledge to train our dog consistently and effectively but in a fun way. We will all really miss James (especially Rumpus) and his fantastic training sessions.. Thank you James!

A thorough education on dog psychology is the foundation of James approach. This allows you to understand your dog and work together towards the desired outcome. We feel so much better equipped to continue Jack's training, there's no short cuts or magic wand , just consistently applying what we learned .

So pleased we decided to undergo structured training early on with our lovely, crazy PBGV pup. Discovered Sussex dogs in a google search and after a brief introductory video call with James it was clear that his approach was exactly what we all needed. Inviting a pup into a home with 2 kids can be a very stressful and tiring situation but the change in a few short weeks has been remarkable. James’s training is uncomplicated and extremely effective. He doesn’t train the dog, he teaches you to train the dog by understanding their psychology and what makes our canine friends tick. Hounds are notorious for their strong hunting instinct and I was nothing short of amazed when at a mere 21 weeks of age our dog returned off lead on a training walk with James. We have been given games to play to reinforce the techniques which are fun for everyone and we are really looking forward to implementing James’s recall training. I can not recommended Sussex dogs highly enough and would love to continue our training as there is so much more to learn. Thank you James!

We reached out to James after our pup’s fear-based reactivity worsened after his operation and our own training efforts just didn’t seem to help him enough. James was brilliant at explaining how dogs see the world and really challenged us to think about our own assumptions and training methods with him. After each lesson, James gave us homework/games to play with our pup. As we became more knowledgeable and confident as trainers, we then started to see changes in our pup’s behaviour. He’s now calmer on his walks and we have the tools to manage his ‘bucket levels’. The work continues, but we now feel that we are on the right path and able to help our pup grow into a happy and confident dog.

We had a wonderful experience with James, he was always attentive, flexible, and genuinely cared about not only our pup, Zelda, but our comfort and knowledge on everything we needed to know. We've come out of the experience feeling fully equipped to tackle anything that being a dog parent can throw at us in the years to come, and Zelda has come out of it as a calm, confident pup! Could not recommend James more!

James has been a great trainer and very understanding of our needs. We are first time dog owners to the lovely Bobo, a rescue dog. She has a high 'seek, avoid' tenancy and was unable to manage her bucket. James took time to explain everything in a clear way, teaching us the psychological reasonings behind Bobos behaviour. We and Bobo still have a long way to go to help her manage her own bucket levels but we have a clear method to help us achieve this in the long run with drastic improvements already. Most importantly we have learnt to interact with Bobo by 'binning the bowl', positive reinforcement and fun food based games. A final thank you to James for also being extremely flexible and there to message with an issues between sessions.

James was very helpful helping with our very lively Collie/Cocker X puppy. He has some unusual methods compared to other trainers and books but they do work. The ‘Break’ for recall and whistle are very successful

We had a great experience that went beyond specific tasks for our puppy to learn and delved into the motivations and psychology of dogs. It’s resulted in a good baseline to build on for an increasingly calm and confident dog.

James has equipped us with a wealth of knowledge and techniques to help us reduce our dog's anxiety. Our weekly sessions were great, with plenty of humour, kindness, games and tasty treats (Rufus very much approved!). We're really pleased with progress made and feel confident that we can continue to build on this. The future is looking far less daunting, for both Rufus and us!

Having recently got a new puppy, I looked around for puppy classes and stumbled on James’ website and his approach of 1:1 concept training really appealed. Having previous experience with an anxious dog, which in turn made me an anxious owner, it was really important that we both received some behaviour training to ensure she had the best start. James has helped me understand the theories behind dog behaviours and has taught us lots of ‘games’ which help manage every day situations which, if not addressed, would have resulted in bad routines being embedded. I also appreciated the opportunity to ask questions between sessions as things cropped up. Some of the techniques were things I had never heard of and felt very strange initially – like ‘bin the bowl’, however, they really do work and I have a very calm, well-behaved dog to prove it! I highly recommend James and will be keeping in touch as puppy continues to grow and develop. Thank you James!