About Us
Who We Are
At Paws ‘n’ Claws Training, we are passionate about helping dogs and their owners build a strong, trusting relationship. With years of experience in dog training, we specialise in creating tailored training programs that suit the unique needs of each dog, whether it’s obedience, behavior modification, or specialised training like scentwork and mantrailing.
Committed to Canine Wellbeing
Hi, my name is Chelsea. I’m the head trainer here at Paws n Claws Training. I thought I’d add a little bit of background about me, my dogs & my business.
I started offering pet services, mainly dog walking but also covering horses, cats, rabbits & reptiles. Through dog walking I learnt a lot about body language, managing off-lead packs with all different ages, breeds, temperaments. In 2021 I picked up my first dog, Buzz & that’s when I realised I wanted to go beyond the basics of dog training. This led to me shadowing RevokutionK9 in order to learn how to teach scentwork & mantrailing.
In November 2023 I moved to Bedford having accepted a job as a trainer for RevolutionK9. Here I found my confidence for teaching 1-1s, expanding my knowledge with a broad range of foster and boarding dogs. While at RK9 I attended various workshops to learn more about protection sports, advanced obedience & Scentwork. This included the Scentwork UK ‘Train the Trainers tier 1 & 2’ which mean I am a certified SWUK instructor and hold my Judges certificate. I also received my Judging certification for the lower levels of NNA & have just completed my ORT assessor course.
I moved back to Scotland in April 2024 with an adopted Malinois x called Monkey, when I began offering 1-1 training and behavioural medication. Over the summer I took on another foster Malinois x GSD puppy and later adopted her as my first sport dog. I did not expect to keep another shepherd but couldn’t let her go.
Most recently, I’ve completed a 6 months mentorship with RavenK9, which really helped me pick apart my own personal training and think about the attention to the small details. Shortly after that I finished Dr Melanie Uhdes ‘Triple Helix’ course to deep dive the dogs brain & how they learn.
I have more CPD courses planned for summer ‘25
Michael - Trainer
I got into dog training because I bought a high-drive XL Bully, put him in a flat in Aberdeen, and pretty quickly realised that we were going to run into some issues.
Kobi was my first dog and he came with everything, resource guarding, reactivity, pulling, not settling, not really wanting to work with me. I was in the Royal Marines at the time and injured, so my days became rehab in the morning and then trying to figure out how to train my dog in the afternoon.
There wasn’t really a plan behind it. I was just pulling from wherever I could, YouTube, books, podcasts, trying things, getting things wrong, and then working out what actually made a difference.
A lot of it came down to the fact he just didn’t want to work with me, so before anything else, I had to build that. Teaching him how to play, how to take food, how to engage… even getting him to see value in me being part of the picture in the first place, that’s where most of how I train now comes from.
From there it just grew, I started helping people on camp with their dogs, then got into things like trick training because we needed something that wasn’t just constantly working through problems. That led into scentwork and tracking, partly out of interest, but mostly because I needed better outlets for the kind of dogs we were working.
I also started getting more involved in sport and decoy work, working alongside more powerful, driven breeds, which gave me a completely different perspective on control, arousal, and what dogs are actually capable of when they’re pushed a bit.
At the same time, everything else was going on in the background, I was medically discharged, the bully ban came in, and Kobe had his own issues with injuries and allergies, which meant adapting things again. Even things like having to train him in a muzzle changed how I approached rewards and motivation. So a lot of what I do now isn’t based on ideal scenarios, it’s based on working things out when they’re not ideal.
I tend to focus a lot on play, motivation, and working dogs in higher levels of arousal, because that’s where behaviour actually falls apart for most people. It’s easy to get things right when everything’s calm, it’s a different story when the dog is switched on.
