Former Police Dog Handler Guy Richardson founded West Lancs Canine Centre with his wife Jean in 1989.
As a police dog handler Guy possessed an innate motivation to train each of his dogs to the best of their abilities – on a number of occasions winning awards and commendations in recognition of his ability, during his time in the police.
By chance, Guy stumbled across a field near to the Formby bypass, and was successful in acquiring the land. The original goal was to use the land to train his own dogs, but fate had a different plan!
In 1991 Guy retired from the Police and officially founded West Lancs Canine Centre. Initially offering a couple of group lessons, and 1-2-1 training.
Moving on Guy had an interesting career – founding a dog display team that travelled far and wide, raising thousands of pounds for charities, offering security dog training courses – as a founder member of NASDU (National Association of Security Dog Users), appearing on TV, supplying dogs for the film Industry, and offering pet dog clients up to 16 group training classes each week.
In 2004, Guy’s son, Craig, came on board and the centre started offering multiple services including; Classes, Day Care, One-to-One Training, Behaviour Development & Holiday Care. It was also around this time that we started offering The Kennel Club Good Citizen Scheme.
In 2010 Guy semi-retired to solely focus on Expert Witness work within the UK and Craig took over the training centre.
Currently Craig delivers all dog behaviour development courses at the centre, as well as conducting expert legal assessments throughout the UK, Craig specialises in dealing with dogs that suffer from a variety of behavioural and training issues, and has a passion for scent discrimination training, canine social interaction and breed specific traits.
In 2020 we scaled back some of our day care and holiday care services to focus solely on group training courses, 1-2-1 training, legal services, and behaviour rehabilitation programs.
Our group training courses are serviced by an experienced team of dog trainers who share a passion for the centre and ensuring all clients achieve their training goals. Our training class manager Pauline Pittaway brought her Red Setter “Rusty” to the centre 16 years ago, with her husband Brian, and both share a love for Setters, Labradors, Schnauzers and all dogs in general! Pauline and Brian now work at the centre alongside experienced dog trainer and Belgian Malinois enthusiast Vicky Naylor, all of whom are dedicated to providing clients with training courses that will create a positive and everlasting impression on new, and more experienced dog owners.
Over the years we have worked with thousands of dogs, to help owners develop their dogs into well rounded and trained family pets. The recipe for success is the right attitude, knowledge and consistency.
We now offer dog owners fixed duration group training courses that focus on the Kennel Club Good Citizen (KCGC) Puppy Foundation, Bronze, Silver and Gold awards. The KCGC scheme is a well established training standard for pet dogs and owners to work towards – creating structure, goal oriented and well organised lessons, to develop your dog, and you, in a positive and structured way.
Our training methodology focuses on developing your dogs confidence and willingness to perform tasks for reward, alongside using safe and appropriate handling techniques to ensure your dog enjoys their training, is motivated to work with you, yet becomes steady and well mannered.
Ethos
We have been established for 33 years in 2022, a testament to our dog training knowledge, skills and our beliefs. We have trained thousands of people and dogs by sticking to one clear cut message – “We train you To train your dog“. Our overall goal isn’t just to produce trained dogs but trained and knowledgeable dog owners who are then able to build on their understanding, if they wish to.
Over the years we have always been proud of the support we give our dog owners, they can contact us at any time, e-mail for free advice, and call down to the centre if they needed to; we are always here to support them during their dog’s training.
At West Lancs Canine Centre our key beliefs are centred on three points; positive motivation (a dog will not learn unless they are motivated first), owner motivation (if there is a motivated owner then a trained dog will soon follow), safety (have a safe environment for the dog to train but also ensure that owners are safe with their dogs) – we find if we stick to these core points with a few additional elements at times, we get the results that have made us one of the UK’s leading dog training centres.
Facilities
West Lancs Canine Centre is based on a four-acre site on Moss Side off the Formby by-pass, within easy reach of Liverpool, Southport and Ormskirk.
We have a large car-park, four outdoor exercise paddocks, an indoor training area, a large outdoor main training area with floodlights and an extensive collection of dog agility equipment. We also have a scent training area for specialist training.
West Lancs Canine Centre is second to none for facilities and we pride ourselves on being Liverpool and Southport’s leading dog training centre.
