My website would not be complete without Mia's story.

Mia was gifted to Battersea Dogs home when she was 12 weeks old. Her story was that she was over posessive of the wife in a family and not very good with the children. Hence she had a note on her kennel saying she needed a "special" home and she had been in rehab for 3 months!

I took onboard what they had told me but couldn't help wondering how much truth there had been the story.

Mia came to work with me at the stables during her first few months with me. She was a good girl right from the start despite a few hiccups like getting run over while going to meet another dog on the other side of the road!

Thankfully she wasn't hurt but there was my first warning that she needed training. The second was when she was out in Richmond park with me when I was riding my beloved mare Tamsin.

Mia had loped off into the distance and then reappeared a few minutes later chasing a whole heard of deer.

The deer chasing was bad enough but she was chasing them in my direction! Tamsins' ears pricked up as she looked at the deer filled cloud approaching.

I could feel her muscles bunching beneath me and saw my life flash in front of my eyes thinking I was to be thrown violently from my horse and then trampled by deer!

Amazingly Mia stopped chasing them when she saw me and they veered off to avoid the prancing horse ahead of them!

This young lady needed training!

So began the classes.. and more classes.. Some I didn't like so I looked for better ones.. some were boring so we looked for more interesting ones.... from obedience to agility we did them all! We entered out first (and last) obedience competition and despite coming second decided all the waiting around was just too boring for words!

At the time I was doing a course in dog psychology and Mia and her friends were my subjects of study and observation.

Before I knew it Mia was the best behaved dog you could imagine.

Mia has been my constant companion for almost 10 years and is a great help in all my classes.

Everyone who meets her loves her, both dogs and people alike!