Speakers
Clarissa Baldwin OBE
Clarissa Baldwin is the Chief Executive of Dogs Trust, a post she has held for 19 years. Prior to this she was Head of Public Relations, having joined the charity in 1974.
Before joining Dogs Trust, Clarissa worked for a public relations consultancy.
Amongst other posts, Clarissa is Chairman of the Welfare Committee for the Pet Plan Charitable Trust, a Trustee of Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, SNIP International and Chairman of both the UK & International Greyhound Forum. She is also Chairman of the Association of Dogs and Cats Home.
Clarissa is the author of the slogan “A Dog Is For Life, Not Just For Christmas”.
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Ray Butcher MA VetMB MRCVS
Ray qualified from the Cambridge University Veterinary School in 1976 and is currently a partner in a large companion animal practice in Upminster, Essex. He is a Past President of both the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) and the Federation of European Companion Animal Veterinary Associations (FECAVA).
He has been presented with the World Small Animal Veterinary Association award for outstanding service to the profession, as well as the special service awards from the national companion animal veterinary associations of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and Hungary. He has also been awarded the Alf Wight Memorial Award for contributions to animal welfare and Honorary Membership status of both the British Veterinary Nursing Association and the BSAVA.
Ray has a special interest in animal welfare and is currently a Veterinary Advisor and Board Member of the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), as well as a Board member of the Alliance for Rabies Control and the Blue Dog project. His main area of work in this context is related to aspects of humane stray animal control and dog bite prevention programmes in children.
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Steve Goward
Steve Goward has worked for Dogs Trust for 8 years.
He started as a volunteer and whilst studying animal welfare at a local college as a mature student he worked at Dogs Trust Roden in Shropshire. On completion of his diploma he started as a full time canine carer where he built up his experience working with dogs in the kennel environment and in 2004 he took over as the training and behaviour advisor for the Roden centre.
Steve has studied canine behaviour to be able to help dogs that are struggling to cope, both in the kennel environment and once they go to new homes, as part of the after care offered by Dogs Trust. He has presented case studies and spoken at seminars including the Scottish Association of Pet Dog Trainers and the National Dog Technical Support Group on subjects including stereotypical behaviours, learning sets, dog aggression & learning theory.
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Sarah Fisher
Sarah Fisher is the UK’s only TTouch Instructor. She teaches staff workshops for many of the UK’s top animal shelters including Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, and Dogs Trust and fosters ASBO pups for Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. She works with private clients (human and animal), lectures and travels around the UK and internationally and is the author of Unlock Your Dog’s Potential and Know Your Horse Inside out published by David and Charles. Her third book 100 Ways to Train the Perfect Dog co-written by her friend and colleague Marie Miller will be published in 2008.
Sarah is a regular contributor to many animal magazines including Your Dog, Your Horse, Horse and Rider, Englands Equestrian and Dogs Today. She has appeared at many educational events including the Wag and Bone Show, and Your Horse Live and has also made numerous television appearances including Talking to Animals (ITV1 and National Geographic), The One Show (BBC), Only Fools on Horses (ITV1), Animal Rescue Live (BBC1), Celebrity Dog School (BBC1) and Blue Peter (BBC1).
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Chris Laurence MBE QVRM TD BVSc MRCVS
Chris Laurence qualified as a veterinary surgeon in 1968. He joined the RSPCA in 1998 and was promoted to Chief Veterinary Officer in 1999.
Chris took up the post of Veterinary Director for Dogs Trust in 2003. Although this primarily focuses his work on dogs he retains an interest in other species and is a Trustee of the Feline Advisory Bureau and a member of the British Veterinary Association’s Veterinary Policy Group. He is Vice Chairman of the Pet Advisory Committee. He continues to be asked to speak on animal welfare issues to a variety of audiences and the media in the UK and abroad.
Chris has been a regional officer of BSAVA, a Council member of the Sussex Division of BVA and President of BVHA He is currently Secretary of the Central Veterinary Society and on the Council of the Society of Greyhound Veterinarians. Chris was made an Honorary Member of BSAVA in April 2005 in recognition of his services to the Association and presented with the Association’s J A Wight Memorial award for animal welfare work in 2008.
He was awarded the Queens Volunteer Reserves Medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2002 and the MBE for services to animal welfare in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2007.
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Carolyn Menteith
Carolyn is a dog trainer and behaviourist with over 20 years experience of working with animals.
She is an experienced broadcaster who appears regularly on radio programmes as a dog expert – and has also presented or co-presented TV programmes and series’. Carolyn has been writing prolifically about dogs, dog training, dog behaviour, dog care, and dog welfare in national magazines and various other press for the past eight years, and is author of two published books.
Carolyn has worked extensively in the UK and Europe on various welfare projects and has presented evidence at House of Commons and prolific welfare debates in her capacity as a professional expert. She is currently working on a template for Trap, Neuter, Return projects in Eastern Europe and around the world, for Dogs Trust and Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, based on their experiences with the SOS Dogs Oradea project in Romania.
Carolyn is passionate about reward-based dog training and has a strong desire to improve life for as many of the nation’s dogs (and owners!) as possible.
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David Newall
David Newall has worked within the ‘not for profit’ sector since 1990, most recently prior to his involvementwith Dogs Trust as Deputy Director General of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home in London and also as Secretary of the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes. Prior to that, David spent five years working alongside Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s Missionaries of Charity in 126 countries, followed by a further five years working for MERLIN (Medical Emergency Relief International). David was running their evaluations and programme set ups in countries affected by civil war and natural disasters (sometimes both!), including Myanmar, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Sri Lanka and Azerbaijan.
In 2007, having left Battersea, he relocated his wife and family to the rural idyll of Shropshire and accepted the post of International Director of Dogs Trust. The International department of Dogs Trust grows year on year and David’s drive and enthusiasm for bettering animal welfare standards worldwide is a major asset. This comprises running ‘Overseas ‘Trap, Neuter and Return’ and ‘Population Control Programmes’ in Romania and Malta respectively, along with offering extensive training opportunities to a worldwide audience.
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Mike Radford OBE
Mike Radford is Reader in Animal Welfare Law in the University of Aberdeen.
Mike is a Trustee of Dogs Trust, and is also associated with a number of other animal welfare organisations.
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Maggie Roberts
Maggie qualified as a vet at Edinburgh University in 1986 and spent most of her career in private small animal practice in Portsmouth, where she developed an interest in feline medicine and helped to neuter the feral cat population in Portsmouth Dockyard. She has also worked in Malawi and Australia and was appointed the first Cats Protection Veterinary Officer in 1997.
After 2 years Maggie returned to private practice but her interest in feline welfare brought her back to CP as Head of Veterinary Services in 2006; she has recently been made Director of Veterinary Services.
Maggie has also been a trustee of the Feline Advisory Bureau and is the co-author of the FAB feral cat manual. She has 3 cats (all rescues of course) – Trevor, Frankie and Ronnie.
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Charlotte Speedy
Charlotte is the Head of Communications at Dogs Trust. For the previous 10 years she worked for a range of corporate and consumer clients at three leading public relations consultancies focusing on media relations, brand development and news generation.
Charlotte joined Dogs Trust in May 2008 and works with the press office team to publicise the work of Dogs Trust through the media. Her responsibilities include reacting to all topical news about dog welfare and dog ownership, developing creative news hooks to promote rehoming and responsible dog ownership campaigns such as neutering, microchipping and education, as well as forging partnerships with other brands, increasing awareness of the Dogs Trust brand amongst key opinion formers and engaging internal members of staff with the PR process.
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Pen Farthing
Pen Farthing served as a Royal Marine for over 20 years before a tour of duty to Afghanistan changed his life forever. Patrolling in the remote Afghan market town of Now Zad he broke up a dog fight organised by the local Police.
Pen wasn’t to know it at the time but one of the those dogs involved in the fight was to adopt Pen as his new owner and much to the amusement of the Marines make Pen the unofficial dog warden of Now Zad.
With their tour of duty coming to an end, Pen knew there was no way he could leave the dogs to fend for themselves and so a rescue plan was organised to attempt the dangerous journey to transport the dogs to safety.
Two years on and Pen and his wife have formed the ‘Nowzad Dogs’ charity (registered number 1119185) with the long term goal of promoting animal welfare to an Afghanistan that is slowly rebuilding itself. Pen has written the book ‘One Dog at a Time’ detailing the rescue of the Now Zad dogs. A large percentage of the author fees from the book are being donated directly into the charity.
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Dennis Baker OBE, Chief Executive, Wood Green Animal Shelters
Born in London, Dennis attended a grammar school whose governors were The Worshipful Company of Brewers! After studying Business Studies, he served in the RAF on flying stations and in HQs, both home and overseas, including NATO. He was awarded the OBE in January 1991. In 2000, he took early retirement, having reached the rank of Group Captain, to become the Chief Executive of Wood Green Animal Shelters. Since then the Charity has embarked on a modernisation plan and has constructed many new buildings at its HQ near Huntingdon including kennels, a cattery, small animals’ units, a coffee shop, a retail shop, a thrift shop and an office complex. A £0.5M refurbishment of its original shelter and hospital in Wood Green, North London was completed in 2008. For the future, the Wood Green is planning to refurbish completely its Heydon shelter, and replace its surgery and hospital at Huntingdon. In addition, Wood Green has introduced a number of new initiatives aimed at improving the psychological and physical welfare of animals in shelters and speeding up the rehoming process, allied with a structure of Personal Development Plans for animal care and veterinary staff.
Dennis is married to Nerys, an artist, and they have two Wood Green rescue dogs (a black Labrador called Gibson and a spaniel/Jack Russell cross called Monty), three retired racehorses (Blue, Silky and Pippa) and two ferrets (Sally and Molly).
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Dr Jeffrey Young
Dr. Jeffrey Young graduated from the Colorado State University School of Veterinary Medicine in 1989. He established Planned Pethood Plus, Inc. (PPP) in 1990. PPP is best known for its low-cost mobile neutering services, Native American Reservation work, and training of Veterinarians from around the world in more efficient surgical techniques. Dr. Young has served on numerous Humane Society boards and has been an advisor for mobile surgical units all across America. He recently founded his own non-profit called Planned Pethood International.
Planned Pethood International was established to help fund spay/neuter work and veterinary training from its new state -of -the –art veterinary hospital in Bratislava, Slovakia. Planned Pethood international is also actively working in Mexico opened a full service Veterinary hospital in Merida, Mexico.
Dr. Young believes his humane ethic comes from being an Animal Control officer during his veterinary college training. He is most proud of having personally sterilized over 160,000 animals in the last 18 years and trained over a 100 veterinarians. He is an outspoken proponent of early age neutering for companion animal population control. Dr. Young is driven by a simple underlying mission “to significantly reduce companion animal overpopulation throughout the world”.
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Claire Bessant
Claire Bessant has been Chief Executive of the Feline Advisory Bureau (FAB) since 1994 and has written numerous books on cats.
At FAB, Claire works closely with veterinary practitioners and specialists, nurses, behaviourists, cattery proprietors and breeders. Through the Cat Group and on various projects she also has close links with rescue organisations. FAB’s huge website provides information for cat owners and cat care professionals alike. As the common denominator is the cat and improving its care, this provides an ideal mix of information and queries to really get to grips with the cat and its needs and foibles! ‘The cat is a creature of mystery and we all need to work together in trying to understand what is best for it.’
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Peter Kiraly D.V.M.
Peter works as a Small Animal Specialist veterinary surgeon in Budapest in his vet hospital. Beside his veterinary practice, he spends most of his time with the management of animal welfare issues.
He founded one of the best known Hungarian SPA, the Rex Foundation in 1992, and he is the parent of the multifunctional Hungarian animal welfare institute the Animal Island.
He gained a lot of experience the Hungarian representative of WSPA between 1997-2002, and he is a board member of the Hungarian Federation for the Protection of Animals. Peter is a returning speaker of Hungarian and foreign animal welfare conferences, where he is keen on sharing his observations with colleagues in the field of humane education and fundraising.
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Hollie Sevenoaks
Hollie Sevenoaks has managed Dogs Trust Education Programme for over 10 years. Dogs Trust have an extensive range of high quality curriculum linked resources for Primary and Secondary schools, as well as a team of Education Officers, who visit schools giving free interactive workshops. Both programmes educate the dog owners of tomorrow to improve the welfare of our faithful friends. The Education Officers speak to over 50’000 children every year!
Hollie also has experience of setting up Education Programmes in Europe including Romania and Malta as well as delivering training courses in Budapest, Athens, Dublin, Lithuania, Austria and Croatia. Hollie works with Sadie Dog who is now 16 years old. Despite retiring from school, she still loves to come to work.
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David Watson BVetMed, MA, MRCVS
David Watson, grew up in the heart of East Anglia and qualified from the Royal Veterinary College, London, in 1972. He spent seven years in practice in Suffolk, most of the time as a partner, building up a small animal clinic, before beginning a career in industry that spanned 22 years and included Beecham Animal Health, Pedigree Masterfoods and Hill’s Pet Nutrition.
David has always had an interest in the media and in communication, especially the relationships people have with each other and their pets. Between 1988 and 2003, he was editor of Veterinary Times and Veterinary Review, and is currently editor of Vetpulse.tv and the Veterinary Nursing Journal.
David is a Reader in the Church of England, and in his spare time enjoys driving a diesel Land Rover, trying to play the church organ (badly), and reclaiming his garden in Cornwall.
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Dr. S. Abdul Rahman – Retd. Dean, Veterinary College, Bangalore, India
Dr. S. Abdul Rahman is a retired Professor of Veterinary Parasitology and Dean of Bangalore Veterinary College. He has published more than 100 scientific papers and has authored a book on Veterinary Parasitology.
He has participated, organised and chaired sessions and seminars at national and international conferences on Veterinary and Animal Welfare. He has, with CVA and WSPA produced the Concepts of Animal Welfare, for inclusion in the veterinary curriculum in India. He is actively engaged in promoting Animal Welfare in Islamic countries by raising issues of stunning prior to slaughter and long distance transport. He has written two papers on this subject.
He has served as Secretary and Vice President of Indian Veterinary Association for 16 years and also served as the Council Member to the (CVA) and Member representing India at the World Veterinary Association and Federation of Association of Veterinarians of Asia. He is at present the Secretary of the CVA and Editor of the Journal of the CVA. He is associated with Middle East Network for Animal Welfare, he is a member of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Working Group on Animal Welfare, and a Member, OIE Ad hoc Group on Stray Dog Control. He is Consultant to WSPA and to WHO on Strategic Framework for Prevention and Control of Zoonoses in South-East Asia, the founder Trustee of Rabies In Asia (RIA), and a Founder Life Member of Association for Prevention and Control of Rabies in India (APCRI).
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John Bower BVSc MRCVS
Shortly after graduating as a vet, John purchased a single handed small animal veterinary practice in Plymouth, Devon, which had developed into a thriving Veterinary Hospital practice with four satellite surgeries and some 70 staff before he retired from there last year. He has been President of the British Veterinary Association, the British Small Animal Veterinary Association, and the Veterinary Practice Management Association, and is the Veterinary Advisor to Pet Plan Insurance Company. In 1991 John was awarded the bsava Melton Award for meritorious contributions to Small Animal Practice.
From 1989 – 2006 John was a Trustee of the BVA’s Animal Welfare Foundation, and is currently a trustee of two national charities – Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and The Pet Plan Charitable Trust. He is an author or co-author of several books including The Dog Owner’s Veterinary Handbook, The Dog Owner’s Problem Solver, The Cat Owner’s Problem Solver, Veterinary Practice Management, and has just about finished writing The Cat Owner’s Veterinary Handbook. In addition John is a regular contributor to the local (and occasionally the national) media.