A few words about me

Hello, I’m Zoe Williamson and I now live in Perth, Western Australia, having moved here from the UK in early 2004.

I have always had a deep respect for animals. My parents would tell you that even from being a young child I felt the need to foster and nurture all kinds of waifs and strays, but dogs are my true love.

When I lost my beautiful springer spaniel in 2001 I made the difficult decision not to have another dog, knowing that my husband and I were migrating to Australia. Instead we decided to wait until we were settled into our new life. In late 2004 our ‘pack’ grew to four with the addition of two more springer spaniels, Molly and Bess.

Just like the majority of responsible dog owners we took our dogs to Puppy Pre-School and then undertook an obedience training course, we used gadgets and a range of different types of harnesses and leads. When one of our dogs began to demonstrate food aggression and aggression towards other dogs we called in a dog behaviourist, but like many people we had mixed success with traditional training methods. I always felt that I was missing something, but didn’t quite know what. I also felt that I was letting my dogs down.

I then read Jan Fennell’s ‘The Dog Listener’ and it felt as if a light had been switched on. After just one day of implementing the methods of Amichien® Bonding we began to see changes and improvements in the behaviour of our dogs. Although we made huge progress, we still had gaps in our knowledge and understanding – it’s difficult to convey all of the fine details of Amichien® Bonding in a book!  Knowing this, I jumped at the chance to attend a Foundation Course in Canine Communication presented by Jan Fennell in Perth. This was quickly followed by the Advanced Course in Canine Communication. My initial reasons for attending the courses were to improve my knowledge and understanding of my own dogs – I just wanted the best possible life with them for the time they would be with us. However, I soon realised that my background as a primary school teacher and my passion for dogs provided me with an opportunity to help to teach other dog owners how to communicate effectively with their own dogs – helping them to live happy and stress free lives together.