PDTE Newsletter July 2020

Jette
Jørgensen
• Denmark
My name is Jette Jørgensen, I am 58 years old and
live on an old farm in Zealand Denmark. I live with my
husband and my dog, a 5-year-old Australian Cattle
Dog named Kela. I have been employed in the financial
sector for almost 40 years, but in 2018 I stopped, and I
am currently not working.
In 2015 when I got Kela I was not completely aware
that you need to have more than ordinary knowledge
of dogs to be the owner of a Cattledog.
However, I had read race descriptions and searched
for information on the internet, but what I read did not
deter me. I thought I would do well, after all I had had
two Labradors.
I had to find a place where puppy training was offered
and it should not be where I went for training with my
Labrador’s, it was completely hopeless (there were too
many dogs on the teams. Sometimes there were 20
dogs and we trained for 2 hours, among other things).
Fortunately, I found Snudekompagniet (Hanne Truelsen)
and through this I got to know of Turid Rugaas and
her dog training and behavior education which I have
taken at Snudekompagniet.
Five years ago I started puppy training at Snudekompagniet,
it has changed my life, my view of dogs and
taught me to understand them which I am incredibly
grateful fore. It is the best thing I have done for my
dog and myself. I have learned so much and I use my
knowledge every day. Thanks to Hanne, Turid, Anne Lill
and Els for all they have taught me.
Debbie Ngai
Hiu Fai
• Hong Kong
Hello Everyone, I am Debbie from Hong Kong. It is a
great honour to be in the PDTE family.
At the moment, I have 4 cats (Bao Bao, Chiquita, Bing
Bing and Sai Sai) and 1 dog (Pearl Pearl) as my family
members. My dog Pearl Pearl teaches me a lot and she
is the one who motivates me to learn more about ‘Dog’
(their needs, their emotion, their behaviour etc.) from
the dogs perspective rather than a human perspective.
She has a history of mistreat and abuse before I
adopted her, she was anxious, very low confident and
quite reserved to bond with human. There is only one
goal for me which I wish her to become relax and enjoy
life as a ‘Dog’. Here I come across PDTE workshops and
conferences and force-free training. And I realised the
knowledge about dogs are MUCH wider and deeper
than the way I imagine! Ever since I can not go back.
On the other hand, I am a social worker with counselling
background and an Certified Animal Assisted
Therapist which I have been working with dogs for 12
years. Animal Assisted Intervention is growing around
the world, but unfortunately, yet, animal welfare is
not. People always misread or ignore the signals and
emotional needs of therapy dogs as I observed. One
of my main work is to promote animal welfare value,
knowledge and skills along with the development of
Animal Assisted Intervention in Hong Kong. I do believe
everyone should have intention and ability to listen to
dogs before they work with or live with dogs. And the
essence of human animal bonding is BEING, rather
than DOING, that’s my cats and dogs teach me.
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July 2020
PDTE Newsletter
35