My story

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For over a decade, I worked in stage management in the West End. It's a world that gets under your skin — the controlled chaos behind the curtain, the precision required to pull off something that looks effortless from the audience, the satisfaction of a show running like clockwork. I loved it.

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I'd always had a deep connection with animals, and the more time I spent around dogs — training them, learning about them, watching the relationship between a dog and an owner transform with the right guidance — the more I knew this was where I was meant to be. Leaving the West End wasn't an easy decision. It was a career I'd worked hard to build.

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My friend and mentor Oli Juste had a passion for dogs and for training that was genuinely infectious. He inspired me to make the leap into dog training and was there supporting me as I built Milne and Mutt from the ground up in September 2017. His encouragement, mentorship, and belief in what I was doing meant the world to me. Losing him was a profound loss — and everything I do carries a little of his influence with it.

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Since then I've worked with hundreds of dogs across South East London — from nervous rescue dogs finding their confidence, to high-energy dogs whose owners weren't sure where to start, to older dogs learning new tricks. Every dog is different, and that variety is exactly what I love about this work.

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