Bethany’s Story

From a young age, I knew that I loved working with animals. Our house was a bit like a petting zoo with gerbils, guinea pigs, cats, dogs and fish. This is what started my love for animals. Throughout my time at primary school, my passions were still animals and I did my year 6-week work experience at a veterinary practice in Cheltenham. This grew my passion further. As a child, I took on many hobbies and dance was one of them. This grew more and more and even though the passion for animals was still there dance took over. I spent many years training and performing at Pontins and with an awesome company called GDance. Unfortunately that all came to an abrupt stop when I fell poorly and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and CFS. I kept getting worse by the day and turned to an online business to see if I could make money this way. After a year of putting my all into the company, I decided to leave as it wasn’t giving me what I needed… a stable income. At this point, I was panicking about where I wanted my life to go and this is where I found Hartpury University. They accepted me onto the Animal Behaviour and Welfare Programme and I loved it. My fire for looking after and training animals was relit. Around this same time, I also ended up getting a dog… Luna! From a puppy, we spent lots of time together as I was stuck at home a lot and I started teaching her tricks and tasks like pulling off my socks and picking something off the floor for me. This is when I knew I wanted to become a dog trainer! With my path in front of me, I set out to pass my degree so I knew I had some knowledge and understanding of animal behaviour. After a long and very challenging 3 years, I managed to get a HE in Animal Behaviour and Welfare. Hartpury was amazingly supportive throughout these years and I would not have been about to do it without them and my friends at the university. After graduation and with the fire in my belly I joined the IMDT Level 3 course and Absolute Dogs PDT course. Starting these game me the push I needed to jump into starting Barking Buds and I have never been happier. Since opening in the middle of June I have been helping over 30 dogs and their owners understand each other and grow their bond further, I have created four amazing programmes that I know will help grow dogs and the knowledge of their owners to new levels and have organised some more amazing surprises that I can not quite say yet 😉 I am going to make Barking Buds a big name. Create an insanely supportive community and create opportunities for people to develop and grow, whether that be as a trainer themselves or with their furry friend. Whatever is next I know it is going to involve Barking Bud’s building and growing and I’m so excited to see where it goes!