Hello, I’m Caroline
I’m the founder of Road to Confidence, a trauma-informed behaviour practice for dogs who are fearful, avoidant, shut down or defensive, and for the people who love them.
How it started
When Woody, my foster fail, first came to live with me, I took him into the local shop. At the counter, he growled. Quietly, but enough to notice. I was embarrassed and just wanted him to stop. To anyone watching, and to me, we looked fine. It took a long time, and a very good trainer, before I saw that he was struggling, and that I wasn’t yet the person he needed.
Then Pocket arrived, with avoidance he had practised for years. Everything I’d learned became essential. His progress wasn’t fast and it wasn’t a straight line, but it was real, and it became the foundation of how I work: trust, choice, and gentle, predictable days.
Today I help guardians and their dogs move from fear to confidence, with structured, compassionate support.
Fear is not a training problem. It’s an emotional experience and a way of surviving, and it deserves compassion, not correction.
Fear changes relationships. It makes dogs hide, freeze, avoid or defend themselves, and it makes guardians feel ashamed, overwhelmed and scared of making things worse. Dogs can’t work through it alone, and their people shouldn’t have to either. Road to Confidence exists to close that distance.
What I bring
Qualifications
- Level 3 Certificate in Canine Training and BehaviourOfqual-regulated qualification awarded by AIM Qualifications, studied with The Dogenius Institute · completed January 2026
- Level 5 Diploma in Canine Behaviour PracticeIn progress
Training
- Moving Beyond Fear & AnxietyLighten Up Dog Training · 2025
- Success with Impulsive DogsLighten Up Dog Training · 2025
- Frustration MasterclassLighten Up Dog Training · 2024
- The Lighten Up Toolbox: dog skills for resilienceLighten Up Dog Training
- Messages of TrustTrust Technique
Experience
- Foster carer and behaviour support volunteerLes Amis des Animaux, France
- Long-term work with my own dogsWoody and Pocket, both with fear-based behaviour
The way I work
- Fear is not a failure, it’s communication.
- Safety comes before training.
- Trust is built, not demanded.
- Slow is fast.
- Every dog gets a say.
- You should leave feeling capable, not dependent.
- I’m honest about what’s realistic, and I won’t promise outcomes nobody can guarantee.
Before the dogs, there was a motorcycle
In July 2018 I rode off a ferry in northern Spain on a Triumph Tiger 800 called Boo. Three hundred and eighty-two days and twenty-three countries later, I finished the lap in Montreal.
I am writing a memoir about it, working title Rarely Alone: Choosing the Road. A lot of what happened did not fit in the book, so it goes in my newsletter instead: a story every other Sunday, and each one stands on its own. Some of the dogs’ stories will turn up there later.
Free to read, on Substack.
Let’s take this one step at a time
Tell me about your dog. I’ll reply personally.