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Last updated: August 2026
Next review: August 2027
1. Who We Are Puppy Plus Training & Behaviour Services is committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal information responsibly and securely. For the purposes of UK data protection law, Puppy Plus Training & Behaviour Services is the data controller for the personal information described in this Privacy Notice.
If you have any questions about how your personal information is used, or would like to exercise any of your data protection rights, please contact: Emma Stoker Puppy Plus Training & Behaviour Services
Email: emma@puppyplus.co.uk
2. What Information We Collect The personal information we collect depends on the services you use and may include: your name and contact details, including your email address and telephone number; booking, appointment and payment information; information you provide through registration forms, questionnaires or correspondence; information about your dog, including their history, behaviour, training, lifestyle and home environment; veterinary and health information about your dog where this is relevant to the services we provide; photographs or videos you choose to provide or that are created as part of our services; communications between you and Puppy Plus, including relevant emails and messages; and records and notes relating to the services we provide to you.
Behaviour cases sometimes require information about your household, routines or circumstances in order to understand your dog's behaviour and provide appropriate support. We will only collect information that is relevant to the service we are providing. You may occasionally choose to tell us sensitive information about yourself or another person. We do not routinely require this information and will only retain or use it where it is relevant and appropriate.
3. Why We Use Your Information We use personal information where it is necessary to provide our services and manage Puppy Plus responsibly. This may include: responding to enquiries and arranging appointments; managing bookings and payments; providing training and behaviour services; preparing behaviour reports, training plans and other client information; communicating with you about your dog and the services you receive; liaising with your veterinary practice or another relevant professional where appropriate; maintaining appropriate client and professional records; managing complaints or concerns; meeting our legal, regulatory and professional obligations; and maintaining and improving our services and business practices.
4. Our Lawful Bases Under UK data protection law, we must have a lawful basis for using personal information. Depending on why we are using the information, we may rely on:
Contract – where using your information is necessary to provide a service you have booked or to take steps you have requested before booking a service.
Legal obligation – where we need to keep or use information to comply with a legal requirement. Legitimate interests – where using information is reasonably necessary for operating Puppy Plus, providing and improving our services, maintaining appropriate professional records, protecting the interests of Puppy Plus or our clients, or establishing, exercising or defending legal claims. Where we rely on legitimate interests, we consider the impact on your privacy and your rights.
Consent – where consent is the appropriate lawful basis, including certain optional uses of information. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time. The ICO requires organisations relying on legitimate interests to tell people both that they are doing so and what those interests are.
5. Who We Share Information With We do not sell your personal information. We may share or process personal information with trusted organisations where this is necessary to provide our services, operate the business or meet our professional and legal responsibilities.
These may include:
Acuity Scheduling – for appointments, bookings and client information;
Stripe – for processing payments;
Microsoft 365 and OneDrive – for business email, document storage and client records;
WhatsApp Business – where you choose to communicate with us using WhatsApp;
Zenler – for our website, online forms, mailing lists and online services;
Veterinary practices and other relevant professionals – where information needs to be shared as part of your dog's behavioural support and there is an appropriate basis for doing so;
AI service providers – for limited AI-assisted processing as described below
Professional advisers, insurers, regulators, law enforcement or other organisations where disclosure is necessary or required by law.
We only share personal information where there is an appropriate reason to do so and limit the information shared to what is reasonably necessary. Where third-party service providers process personal information on our behalf, we take reasonable steps to use services with appropriate privacy and security arrangements.
6. How We Store and Protect Your Information We take appropriate steps to protect the personal information we hold against loss, misuse, unauthorised access, alteration or disclosure. Client records and business documents are primarily stored securely using Microsoft 365 and OneDrive within Puppy Plus's business account. Access to client information is restricted to those who need it for legitimate business purposes. We use appropriate security measures including password-protected accounts, multi-factor authentication, device security and access controls. Where paper notes are created during consultations or other work, they are stored securely while required and confidentially destroyed when they are no longer needed.
We regularly review how personal information is stored and accessed and take reasonable steps to ensure our security arrangements remain appropriate.
7. How Long We Keep Your Information We only keep personal information for as long as it is reasonably required for the purpose for which it was collected, including providing our services, maintaining appropriate professional records and meeting legal, regulatory or financial obligations.
Our usual retention periods are:
Active clients and ongoing groups: information is retained while you continue to use our services and reviewed when your involvement ends. Training courses and other short-term services: routine client and course information is normally retained for up to 12 months after the service ends, unless there is a reason for it to form part of a longer-term client record.
Behaviour cases: professional case records, including reports and relevant correspondence, are normally retained for six years after the case closes.
Booking information: booking records are periodically reviewed and deleted or anonymised when they are no longer required for business, legal or financial purposes. Financial and tax records: records that need to be retained for accounting or tax purposes are kept for the period required by law.
Mailing list information: retained until you unsubscribe or otherwise ask us to remove you from the mailing list.
Rough paper consultation notes: normally retained for no longer than three months, once information that needs to form part of the professional record has been transferred to the secure client record. They are then confidentially destroyed.
AI working records: AI conversations are normally deleted within three months of the case closing, once information that needs to form part of the professional record has been securely retained elsewhere.
Some information may need to be kept for longer where there is an ongoing complaint, legal claim, safeguarding concern or another legal or professional reason for retaining it. We periodically review the information we hold and securely delete or destroy information that is no longer required.
The ICO specifically expects privacy information to explain how long information will be retained.
8. Your Data Protection Rights Under UK data protection law, you have rights over the personal information we hold about you. Depending on the circumstances and the reason we are using your information, you may have the right to:
ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete;
ask us to delete your personal information where the right to erasure applies;
ask us to restrict how we use your information in certain circumstances;
object to certain ways in which we use your information;
receive certain information you have provided to us in a portable format, where the right to data portability applies;
withdraw your consent at any time where we are relying on consent to use your information.
These rights do not apply in every situation. For example, we may sometimes need to retain information to meet a legal obligation or where we have another lawful reason to keep it.
Puppy Plus does not use automated decision-making or profiling. Professional decisions about the services we provide are made by us, not by automated systems or AI. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact emma@puppyplus.co.uk. We may need to confirm your identity before responding to a request in order to protect your information.
9. Complaints If you have a concern about how Puppy Plus has collected, used, stored or otherwise handled your personal information, please contact us so that we have the opportunity to investigate and respond.
Data protection complaints can be made to: Emma Stoker
Email: emma@puppyplus.co.uk
We will acknowledge a data protection complaint within 30 days of receiving it. We will investigate the matter appropriately and without undue delay, keep you informed where necessary and let you know the outcome of our investigation. Further information about how we handle complaints is available in our Complaints Policy. If you remain unhappy with how we have handled your personal information or your complaint, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's independent data protection regulator. The 30-day acknowledgement and investigation requirements have applied since 19 June 2026.
10. International Transfers Some of the service providers we use operate internationally. This means personal information may sometimes be processed or accessed outside the UK. Where personal information is transferred outside the UK, we take reasonable steps to ensure appropriate protections are in place in accordance with UK data protection law. This may include relying on UK adequacy regulations or approved contractual safeguards.
11. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Puppy Plus uses artificial intelligence tools to support limited aspects of our work.
This may include administrative tasks, improving the structure or clarity of written material, supporting research and professional learning, and developing general educational resources. We take client confidentiality seriously when using AI. Identifying details are removed if client information is used with an AI tool, and only information that is relevant and necessary for the task is included. We minimise the amount of personal or sensitive information processed and take particular care when working with client records and veterinary information.
AI does not replace professional judgement or direct assessment. We do not use AI to make automated decisions about clients or their dogs, or to make behavioural assessments or other high-risk professional decisions. Professional assessments, recommendations and decisions about your dog are made by puppy plus, where appropriate, in consultation with your veterinary surgeon or another relevant professional.
AI-assisted working information is not used as the permanent client record and is retained only for as long as reasonably necessary in accordance with our retention procedures. The ICO's AI guidance specifically emphasises transparency where personal information is processed using AI, including explaining purposes, retention and sharing.
12. Website and Cookies Our website may use cookies and similar technologies that are necessary to provide website functionality, security, account access, enrolment, purchasing and online course services. Puppy Plus does not currently use Google Analytics or advertising tracking technologies on its website. Further information about the technologies used on our website and how you can manage cookies is available in our Cookie Policy.
13. Marketing and Mailing List We will only send you marketing emails if you have chosen to join our mailing list. You may choose to join when signing up through one of our registration or online funnels, or through another Puppy Plus mailing-list sign-up. Joining the mailing list is optional and is not a condition of using our services. We may use the mailing list to keep you informed about Puppy Plus services, training opportunities, courses, events and other relevant news or updates. You can unsubscribe at any time using the unsubscribe option provided in our marketing emails or by contacting emma@puppyplus.co.uk.
If you unsubscribe, we will stop using your contact details for marketing purposes. We may retain a minimal record of your preference where necessary to ensure that you are not accidentally added back to the mailing list.
Service communications relating to something you have booked or an ongoing service are not marketing communications and may still be sent where necessary.
14. Changes to This Privacy Notice We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time to reflect changes in our services, the systems we use or legal requirements. The latest version will be available on our website and the date at the top of this notice will show when it was last updated.