About Me

Harrogate Dog Training is run and owned by Chrissy Beadle MSc, who set up as a trainer in 2014 offering one-one training and behavioural advice for families and their dogs after realising that some people needed a more personalised service than that which classes had to offer but also didn’t need a clinical behaviourist on the case!

Chrissy holds an MSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Training and is also an APDT (Association of Pet Dog Trainers) Advanced Instructor. Both of these achievements reflect Chrissy’s dedication to offering the very best advice for pet guardians where application of kind, fair and effective methods prioritise both the animal’s welfare and the human-animal bond.

Aversive tools that serve to supress behaviour will never be recommended or used in any circumstance. In 11 years of being a behaviourist and trainer, Chrissy has always helped caregivers and their pets using a variety of techniques that are primarily reward based using positive reinforcement. Chrissy is a member of the Pet Professional Guild, who are dedicated to promoting force free animal training that does not include electronic shock collars, prong collars or choke chains.

Dedicated to continued professional development Chrissy has attended many seminars, webinars and conferences as well as keeping up to date with the latest research into all subjects that inform humane dog training methods.  Chrissy believes that learning from experts in the field of behaviour and training, is crucial to stay abreast of new findings, in various scientific fields of enquiry, into what affects behaviour and learning and how this is applied to ensure effective learning when dealing with other sentient beings.  Just as for our dogs, Chrissy believes learning for herself is a lifelong process!

Harrogate Dog Training offers Reward Based – Positive Reinforcement Training

Harrogate Dog Training is all about how we as dog guardians communicate with our dogs to enable the best possible relationship through fair, fun and rewarding training methods, through which we can set behavioural boundaries that we want or need.

Reward Based training is backed up by a heap of academic scientific study done over many decades and has been proven to offer a kind and reliable bridge between the human-dog communication process.

Communication has been a lifelong interest for Chrissy and seeds of being a dog trainer were sown while very young always fascinated by how our animal friends who don’t share the same language seem to understand very well about the connection needed with the people (and other species!) they shared their lives with. Being around dogs as a child she loved teaching some of them fun tricks – what a revelation! dogs seemed to be able to watch, copy and learn what we wanted. As an adult who loved to travel and learn other languages eventually studying languages at University for her first degree, and after working in Management for several years, it seemed like a natural progression to put her passion for communication and dogs together. Chrissy started her own training to become a trainer, at a time, thankfully when lots of scientific research into human learning theory being applied to animal learning was already well established.

Chrissy’s Dogs

Chrissy got her first Working Cocker pup, Sky in 2012. However, several years before Sky she got her first adult dog an adorable 3 year old re-home Lurcher called Milly and her second re-home soon followed: a very gentle characterful and clever 8 month old Malamute called Jess.

She now has six fun loving Working Cocker Spaniels who live as part of her family – Sky age 12, Wren and Scout age 8, Boo and Yogi both age 6 and the latest addition to the family Juno, age nearly 4 years. A mix of very loveable characters who all love training and having fun outdoors. Having bred and reared with great love and care five litters of pups it has been an added first hand education about how dogs learn and behave – it is fascinating watching how quickly new pups develop and grow and just how much they can learn in a short space of time! Having a multi dog household also teaches Chrissy every day about how our dogs interact and behave as a family group. They are all great fun so never a dull moment!

Yogi achieved his Kennel Club Working Gundog Certificate aged 20 months – all that early foundation training really does pay off!

Harrogate Dog Training is very happy to offer a holistic approach during one to one sessions to help you to understand how to get the best from your canine friend and enable them to fit into your family routine and social life, while always working towards building trusting partnerships.

Chrissy looks forward to helping you with your training goals whether that is advising you on your puppy acquisition, early days puppy foundation behaviour and training, a single training issue you have stalled on, more advanced training games for you and your dog to have fun with or teaching you to teach your pet gundog skills to fulfil their breed needs.