About us

Penel Malby & Laura McAuliffe run Dog Communication jointly.

Living with six dogs, Penel Malby spends a lot of time observing and learning from her own pack of dogs. Penel works with animals all the time; as well as helping dogs become more sociable, she has her own photography business and also trains and handles animals on photoshoots, commercials and films.

Penel's dogs are Lola, a six-year-old English setter; she is very gentle and calm, and great with nervous dogs, Lola is often the dog we introduce to a new dog first of all. Hattie is five years old; she is a working strain Cocker Spaniel, a very busy, intelligent little dog. Barley is a five-year-old rough-coated lurcher, who came as a rescue three years ago and is a very well trained dog - he has superb recall and is great with other dogs, very polite. Barley refuses to run with dogs that he doesn't know so is a great asset helping teach dogs that have"chase" issues, as he gets older he has become more and more confident, in a good way. Gracie is Penel's main teaching dog. She is a whippet cross and is about 4 years old.. Morris is a Pointer cross English Setter, he is about two years old, he can be nervous and slightly submissive but is growing in confidence the longer he lives with Penel. Figgis is Penel's latest (and final !) addition. He is a cocker spaniel, full of joie de vivre. Figgis is nearly a year old and will be coming to join in the groups some time soon, as he is so sociable and confident.

Penel's dogs all all very different, in age and in breed type and personality, and are therefore very valuable assets as teaching and stooge dogs. Penel has been working under Angela Stockdale's tutelage for two and a half years now, alongside Gracie, and with Laura and Beama. Working with dogs that have issues in this way has been a revelation to Penel: it has totally changed her way of thinking.

Laura McAuliffe has a degree in biology with specialism in animal behaviour and a PhD in something entirely different! Laura's career returned to animal behaviour 5 years ago when she became involved with rescue dogs.

Laura's interest in using teaching dogs to help aggressive dogs began 5 years ago when she adopted a people and dog- aggressive rescue lurcher called Luka. Luka has severe learning difficulties and could almost be described as autistic in human terms. Rehabilitating Luka so that he could enjoy human and dog company again has been a long journey for Laura and her husband Richard. Laura began to see how effective teaching dogs can be when one of her own dogs, Beama, began to gently police Luka and politely stopped other dogs from approaching Luka, helping him to enjoy walks free from the fear of other dogs harassing him.

Through Luka, Laura met and worked with many eminent behaviourists and finally Angela Stockdale who inspired and ompletely changed Laura's views on how to rehabilitate aggressive dogs. Laura has been working under Angela's expert tutelage for the past three years and has gained a wealth of experience assessing dogs with communication problems and the use of teaching dogs to help aggressive dogs. Through her work with Angela, Beama is now a fully accomplished teaching dog and has helped hundreds of dogs to overcome their issues with other dogs. Luka has also become a teaching dog in his own right- he has great empathy with dogs that have learning difficulties and is often used to help them to learn how to behave appropriately and most importantly how to play with other dogs!

Laura and Penel met five years ago when Penel offered her pack of dogs to help socialise Luka, who had never met a non-lurcher before. Through walking with Penel's steady and sociable dogs, Luka made great progress. Their eight dogs are now great friends and love to spend time together walking and playing, as well as working together with other dogs in the group socialisation classes.