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Beyond the Breed Team

Group dynamics has never been easier to understand. Functional characters explains so much!

About Us

Functional character workshops have been running in Richmond, North Yorkshire almost every two months since November 2018.

The Event Team have become so obsessed with the concept of understanding dogs and dog behaviour by their functional character that we have decided to go on a mission and spread this information out as far as possible, starting with our UK-wide workshops in 2023.

Hopefully, we will see you at one of these very soon!

I am deeply grateful to Dr Isla Fishburn for all her help with gaining knowledge on functional characters and for sharing her ideas, energy, and love.

Dogs have been part of my life since 1964, although my dog training career didn’t start until 1979.

Over 100 dogs have shared life’s path with me so far and all have taught me different things about their species, but by far the biggest gamechanger has been learning about functional characters.

This knowledge has completely transformed my dog behaviour consults and training classes.

The Natural Dog Conference at Birmingham in December 2015 was when I met Dr Isla, just a few months before I set up my doggie daycare, CentreBarks, in Richmond. We hosted Canine Wellness workshops with Dr Isla in 2016/17, during which she touched on functional characters.

I was hooked! We then hosted a Functional Character workshop with her in early 2018 and the rest, as they say, is history!

Heather Stevens
Workshop

During the morning theory session at our workshops, all attendees receive a workbook to help them on their functional character journey, with plenty of discussion on individual dogs.

After lunch our practical session is spent observing dog behaviour and interactions between all the dogs attending and helps everyone to see their pet’s functional character “in action”.

MY CREDENTIALS ARE:

  • An Accredited Member of the Canine & Feline Behaviour Association (CFBA)
  • A Certified Training Partner with the Karen Pryor Academy
  • A registered Animal Trainer with the Animal Behaviour & Training Council (ABTC)
  • A Recognised Assistance Dog Trainer for Dog AID
  • A Volunteer Senior Assessor for Wag & Company
  • A Reiki Master
  • A certified specialist in canine nutrition and the link between diet and behaviour