Victoria Stilwell may be known for presenting It's Me Or The Dog, but having just moved house for the umpteenth time with her husband and young daughter - this time from New Jersey to Atlanta, Georgia - she'd be a natural choice as a stand-in for Kirstie and Phil on Location, Location, Location.

"We've moved 11 times in the last two years because of filming in two different countries, so it's been a bit stressful," she confesses.

Former actor Victoria first moved to the US back in 1999 to be with her actor husband, Van Zeiler, whom she met when they starred opposite each other in the West End production of Buddy.

While she loves the way of life on the other side of the pond, she admits she does miss Britain.

" I have a real passion for going around old stately homes and castles, that's one of my hobbies," she reveals. "We do have beautiful homes here in the US, and we do have a lot of fascinating history, but it's not as prolific as it is in Britain.

"When the weather is good there is no place more beautiful than Britain. I miss the countryside," she adds longingly.

Victoria grew up in Wimbledon and always had an interest in dogs thanks to her grandmother, who bred beagles.

However, her parents wouldn't let her get a pooch of her own, despite her pleas.

"My father wasn't actually a dog lover at all, and he and my mother both worked. Even though I always badgered them to get a dog they wouldn't because there wasn't time enough for them to look after it. They were doing the responsible thing, even though I thought they were being mean," she smiles.

As a youngster Victoria dreamed of becoming a dog trainer, show jumper or actor, but it was the latter she turned her hand to, starring in several theatre productions.

"Dogs were very much a support to my acting career," she explains. "I started my training career as a dog walker to earn money to go to drama school, and then many years ago I decided that being an actor was very, very hard and I always felt much better when I was training dogs.

"I'd go to an audition and come out feeling terrible, and then I'd do some training straight after and come out feeling fantastic, so it wasn't a difficult decision to make."

Victoria's training business began to boom, and after watching an episode of Supernanny, she realised there was a gap in the market for a similar show centring on our fluffy friends.

" That holistic approach that Jo Frost took was very much my approach, so I wrote to the producers. The next day they replied and that was it," she laughs, recalling that they said they'd been thinking of a show exactly along those lines. "It was very much being in the right place at the right time. That never happens in my life, it's always been a struggle, so it was great."

It's Me Or The Dog has proved a resounding success, and is now about to embark on its fourth series.

With Victoria's view that most bad behaviour in dogs is down to the owners, does she ever find participants angry that they are being criticised on national television? "You know what, I'm just straight with them," she says. "Even though I'm coming in dressed in black and looking quite severe, they know the truth when they get to know me, that actually I am a very compassionate person, I am very supportive and I will bend over backwards to make sure things work for people."

The first show in the new series features Bruce Forsyth's daughter, Debbie Matthews, and her two Yorkshire terriers, Gizmo and Widget. Last year the two pups were dog-napped, and despite being returned after a television appeal, the experience has had a lasting effect on the dogs and Debbie.

" The dogs were sitting in the car, the window was smashed, they were grabbed by a stranger, put in a cardboard box and then taken to be sold off to other people," Victoria explains. "It caused a lot of stress and anxiety for the dogs, those 10 days, and that doesn't leave you.

" Debbie is the loveliest person you could ever hope to meet, she's an absolute gem, but she was so traumatised by the whole event and the dogs' behaviour had changed very much. They just needed someone to come in and recognise that they were still suffering trauma, there are ways to combat it and we can take action so that they can live their lives again."

Later in the series Victoria gets to work on two toilet-challenged greyhounds.

"The owners would come down in the morning, come back at lunchtime and come back after work to a sea of wee and poo," she grimaces. "But these two greyhound pups who are eight, nine months old had never been trained how to go to the toilet properly by the owners, it was them that caused the problem.

"We rectified it and the very next day they didn't pee or poo in the house," she says with satisfaction.

Having been into countless homes over the past two years, Victoria has seen a plethora of problems, but says she thinks one of the biggest causes of bad behaviour is dogs being left on their own all day.

"Dogs don't do well in social isolation, they are pack animals and need to be with their family," she explains. "Being on their own a couple of hours is fine, but when it's eight-hour days it's not. If people can't get a dog walker or take them to doggy daycare, they shouldn't have dogs."

Victoria warns that getting a dog is a huge responsibility that shouldn't be taken on lightly.

She says you should do plenty of research into the breed you want, and if you are getting your dog from a shelter, visit it a couple of times.

"You must also look at your home environment. Do you work? Will you have time for a dog? Dogs need a lot of time. If you are going to get a puppy, it's like having a baby. That puppy is going to rely on you to bring it up in the right kind of environment, it's going to rely on you for security, for everything. You need a lot of time, effort, patience and commitment."


It's Me Or The Dog is on Channel 4 from Thursday July 12