ABOUT US

ABOUT

Dog At Heart

At Dog At Heart, we only use reward-based and humane training techniques as we understand that dog training is a science that needs to be executed with compassion. We value teaching dogs the life skills they need to live successfully in our human world and empowering them with the ability to make choices, over traditionally harsh obedience training. Our dogs can indeed learn effectively through positive reinforcement and without physical punishment, or even the threat of it, no matter what issues they may have.

ABOUT

THE TRAINER

RACHEL FORDAY, VSA-CDT

Rachel began her journey of training dogs while volunteering at SPCA Singapore since Nov 2016. Alongside a former full-time job in sound engineering, Rachel went to the SPCA every week to walk and train the many different shelter dogs there. With guidance from a reputable force-free trainer in Singapore, Rachel and a team of fellow Dog Mentors provided these shelter dogs with enrichment and worked with them on issues such as reactivity, leash pulling, and jumping up, as well as crate training, and measures for cooperative care like The Bucket Game and Muzzle Training.

Through their experience with shelter dogs, Rachel organically gained a passion for dog training and wanted to help more dogs and their owners. They then attended the Victoria Stilwell Academy’s in-person Dog Trainer Course, which she graduated from with distinction. During this time, Rachel also adopted a dog from SPCA Singapore and brought him over to Liverpool where she is now based in.

Rachel strongly believes in continuing education as dog training is indeed a science and an art that has to be kept up with to provide the best help possible to dog owners and their dogs.

Outside of training dogs, Rachel also occasionally trains cats and freelances as a sound engineer for a game audio company.

ABOUT

DAVE THE DOG

Dave, a typical Singaporean mongrel, was adopted from SPCA Singapore to Liverpool by Rachel in July 2019. Rachel had been Dave’s dog mentor since early 2017 and did not realise at the time that she would make the big leap into adopting him a couple of years later. She worked with him on his reactivity to other dogs, muzzle training, and crate training while he was at the shelter.

Dave is now 12 years old and he is a brilliant training partner and canine educator. He has an Advanced Trick Dog title from Do More With Your Dog, proving that yes you can teach old dog new tricks. With his soulful eyes and signature smirk, he also has quite the following on Instagram. You can check him out here!