Tara Choules

Tara Choules CCPDT, MAPDT 00852, CAP2, HNC

Tara owns Dog Training Ireland www.dogtrainingireland.ie with Lisa Whelan. Tara lives with her two dogs Zak, a mini Dachshund and Boomer, a mini Schnauzer and her husband Philip in Ratoath, Co Meath, Ireland.

Dog Training Ireland is a training company that has a mission to help dogs live in our human world through better understanding and communication. Tara started out rescuing dogs from pounds in Dublin and re-homing them back in 2001 with Lisa. It became apparent that many dogs were surrendered to the pounds for reasons that were easily solvable. Resources and help for people were virtually non-existent.

As a result Tara attended Bishop Burton in East Yorkshire (UK) with Lisa and they received their HNC in Canine Training & Behaviour in 2004. Later that year they became members of the APDT (UK), which requires assessment, and in 2005 they achieved their CAP2 from Learning About Dogs (Kay Laurence). In 2008 they achieved their CPDT certification. Tara is currently studying a BSc (HONS) in applied animal behaviour with with Sparsholt College.

Since it’s inception in 2004 Dog Training Ireland and it’s trainers have gone from strength to strength and is still growing. The company now employs 6 staff and runs a busy Intern programme for those studying in the area of canine training and behaviour.

Almost 3000 Irish dogs have been trained at Dog Training Ireland classes. DTI runs courses and workshops in Puppy Socialisation, Pet Dog Obedience, Behaviour modification and Aggression, Agility and Gundog and of course hosts Seminars and workshops by Dr Ian Dunbar.

In January 2009 Dog Training Ireland moved to a new 5000 square foot training centre and we have introduced day-care for all breeds. This is the first Day-care facility in Ireland and boy are we proud!

We have hosted two Dr Ian Dunbar Seminars and Workshops and hope to host many more in the future. We enjoy every minute of Kelly and Ian's visits.

Blog posts by Tara Choules

Well done to those who take the advice!

Tara Choules | Sun, 05/03/2009 - 14:07

Meet Bart, a little collie cross. He lives with two children and he was there first! He doesn't pull on the lead, jump up on people or the kids in the home, steal things or act in any way inappropriately.

Why? Because his owners called for help when he was a new puppy who had arrived in their home at 9 weeks old. They listened and took on board every piece of advice they were given and worked hard to give Bart what he needed.

Today at age 4 Bart has a healthy diet, an appropriate exercise regime, fun things to do that are instinctive to his breed type plus, and most importantly he is a member of their family. When the children arrived Bart was never excluded. He was involved from day 1 with the result that he loves his family and little people plus he knows exactly how to behave around them. His owners give him feedback on everything he gets right with the result that he rarely gets anything wrong!

Never work with Children or Animals!

Tara Choules | Sat, 04/25/2009 - 07:46

I decided to ignore the advice in the old saying "never work with children or animals" and jump right in at the deep end yesterday!

The Theatre production of Annie were looking for a dog to play the part of Annie. Not content with the pre trained dogs we had to offer they wanted BIG, SHAGGY and bombproof around children! So we had a look at our daycare attendees and as Jasper the Goldendoodle popped his head over the partition we thought - that's the one!

So off we go bag packed with treats, balls, poop bags, towel, water, leads and harnesses. We arrive for the radio pre record and to meet the three girls who are in the running for the part of Annie. They meet the dog and all was recorded to go out on National Radio later that day. You can hear the meet and greet here about 1:09:30 into the clip: http://www.rte.ie/radio/mooneygoeswild/archive/index.html