Lisa has been passionate about animals all her life. Growing up in Cyprus there were plenty of stray animals that needed help, from cats and dogs to chickens, rabbits and donkeys. Think the Durrells and that was pretty much Lisa's early experience with animals.
Lisa has owned and trained dogs for many years and strongly believes in ethical, reward based training. She has experience re-homing and rehabilitating dogs with severe behaviour problems such as separation anxiety, people aggression and resource guarding.
Lisa has been studying canine behaviour and training for many years but really became interested in working as a dog trainer when encountering problems with her own dog who developed reactivity issues at a young age. Lisa feels she has learnt more from working with her own dogs than any book or course could have taught her.
With a passion for agility training and dog sports in general, Lisa has trained her dogs to a high level in both aglity and gundog work.
Lisa has also volunteered at local dog shelters to gain further experience handling different breeds and temperaments.
In addition to training dogs, Lisa has also clicker trained a Welsh Highland Pony, called Stinky, to do tricks and appeared on ITV’s 'Teach My Pet To Do That' in September 2017.
Since tragically losing her young Working Cocker Spaniel, Gimli, in August 2022, Lisa dedicates a lot of her time supporting people with spaniels and also volunteers and fosters for Spaniel Aid UK.
She now shares her home with a Ruby Rue, Chocolate Labrador and Henry, Working Cocker Spaniel. Both dogs were rehomed due to behavioural issues.
Lisa's accreditations include:
Halyna grew up in a beautiful town in Western Ukraine. She always loved animals but living in an apartment at the time only allowed for hamsters and budgies!
She had her first dog Dani, a Chinese crested, joining the family about 7 years ago. With him grew Halyna’s passion for learning more about animal behaviour and dog training in particular. Dani became reactive as an adolescent dog and to help him Halyna never stopped learning. Originally Dani was meant to be an assistant dog to her severely Autistic son. After thorough research, another dog joined the family- Seamus, Peruvian Hairless Dog, from whom a life long passion for this particular breed started!
Training a Primitive Breed dog inspired further learning and deepened the understanding of the science of behaviour and training methods. Halyna was inspired by the work of Leslie McDevitt and conversation based dog training which still forms the baseline line for her everyday work.
Another Peruvian Hairless Dog joined the family 2 years after Seamus, a girl this time - Yma , exceptionally smart but needed a lot of confidence building. Halyna now has 6 dogs and they all have their differenct challenges.
Working with her own dogs and helping them through their challenges cemented the decision for the new career. Halyna qualified as a Dog Trainer with the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers in 2020. Prior to that she has volunteered with the Dog Trust Dog school to gain experience and joined Lisa at Canine Connection as a helper/volunteer and became part of the team in 2021.
Halyna’s accreditation’s include:
