Quiraing Dog School
Quiraing - About Us
Quiraing Dog School is owned by Annette Megaughin-Helder. Together with her husband Andrew she works and lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Annette Megaughin-Helder
Annette was born in Haren, a village in the North-East of The Netherlands. Animals have always played an important role in her life. In her childhood her family had rabbits, budgies, cats, chicken, hamsters and a dog. It was no suprise that she decided to study Animal Management at the Van Hall Institute in Leeuwarden as she wanted to work in a zoo, preferably in the UK.
In
1996 Annette was given her first Border Collie, Daya, for her birthday
by her parents. At that point neither Annette nor her parents could
have guessed how much this would change her life. Knowing little about
how to train a dog, she took Daya to training classes and became eager
to learn all there was to know about the different ways to train dogs.
In 2001 she gained her MGI, MGII
and MGIII dog training qualifications at the well-known (in The
Netherlands!) Martin Gaus Behaviour Institute and followed training courses in behaviour assessment and
behaviour tests run by Drs. J. Bruinsma, founder of Dogstyle.
After gaining her degree in Animal Management ,
Annette decided to use her knowledge and experience as a qualified
dog trainer to help owners transform their dogs into happy, well
behaved and obedient pets. Quiraing Hondenschool &
Adviescentrum was founded in 2001 and over the years Annette and her
staff have helped hundreds of owners through classes, private training
sessions and behaviour consultations to minimize problem behaviour in a
dog friendly way.
In 1999 Annette bred her first litter of
Border Collie puppies under the kennel name Quiraing Border
Collies. Abigail Adina of Quiraing (Abby), one of the pups of
that first litter, turned out to be a real star. Abby and her owner and
handler Henk joined the Dutch national team in the IFCS Agility
World Championships in 2004 and as well as winning almost all possible
competitions in The Netherlands in 2005 they are selected again to
represent The Netherlands at the IFCS Agility World Championship. As
Abby's breeder Annette is of course very proud of this result.
In 2004 Quiraing Dog School added Doggydancing to
it's list of courses and became front page news all over the
world. Annette gave interviews for Radio Melbourne, Radio Tokyo, Radio
Equador, the BBC breakfast show, almost all the Dutch national radio
stations, major newspapers like Le Monde (Fr) and De Telegraaf (NL) and
even appeared on a very popular Dutch television program hosted
by Paul de Leeuw. Crazy? Definately! Fun? That too. Try googling
"Annette Helder" and even now you will still find references
all over the internet. For a few examples see our News Archive.
In 2005, Annette married Andrew Megaughin, a Scotsman, then moved to Edinburgh to live with her husband and work together to expand Quiraing internationally. They share their home with Annette's two dogs, Daya and Charlie (Daya's granddaughter).
To read the interview Annette gave to a Dutch magazine click here.
Andrew Megaughin
Andrew was born in Kilmacolm, a village west of Glasgow. Growing up he didn't have much luck with animals, he lost a hamster behind a wall and lost a terrapin while on holiday 300 miles away in England. Shortly after, when the terrapin didn't walk back to find his owner in Scotland, Andrew realised that life is not a Disney movie.
As
a child Andrew never wanted a dog, never even liked dogs,
but he did feel a certain attraction towards pretty redheads. When
Annette entered his life he quickly realised this was a case of
"love me, love my dog" and suspected he'd do anything to make
Annette happy, even welcome hairy, licking, attention grabbing dogs
into his home.
Andrew is still getting used to Daya and Charlie but loves having an excuse to go walking in the park 3 times a day with Annette.
Andrew has a B.Sc.(Hons) in Computing Information Systems from Glasgow Caledonian University
so he mostly leaves dog training to the experts and concentrates on
supporting Quiraing's databases, websites and other technical
requirements.
Natalie Hogg - trainee
Natalie
was born in Edinburgh and has always had a passion for animals, in
particular dogs. If she had ever gone missing from home it was known
that she had wandered off to follow a dog on its walk. A habit of great
worry and annoyance to her parents.
As
she grew older her passion for dogs translated to a deep interest in
promoting animal welfare. She was given her first dog after what felt
like a very long wait (really only until she was 10 years old) and her
interest in training grew from there. Her first dog was a Bichon Frise
named Gemma, from whom she learnt an awful lot. Gemma was a very bright
dog and learnt how not to do things as quickly as how to do them.
Natalie was grateful for her good nature in putting up with a
child’s attempted training methods. She will always be a much
missed family pet.
Since
then Natalie’s family has extended to include a house rabbit
called Stitch and a beautiful crossbreed dog called Callie. Following
her passion for animals she worked as a Veterinary Assistant and
volunteered at the SSPCA for 5 years. In recent years she has
volunteered for the Dogs Trust as a dog socializer and the ‘Dog
Whisperer’ in Australia to get a more complete understanding of
canine
After hearing of Quiraing Dog School she approached Annette and Andrew to take her on as a trainee and is very grateful that they agreed!
