As a Dog Behaviourist, it is my hope to better equip families for their journey as Pack Leaders with the knowledge and skills to confidently guide their furry friends. With the confidence to lead your pack and learn from those moments that challenge you, you can learn to handle anything once you"ve got the fundamentals down. My journey started in a roundabout kind of way, roughly 15 years ago. Hav
ing grown up with docs my whole life, I figured I knew what I was doing. My kids were young, my family had just moved into our first home in a new town and we figured why not add a dog to the mix. I’d always wanted to have a couple dogs eventually, and when the opportunity came up to get a brother and sister at the same time, we jumped on it quickly. Getting two 10 week old chocolate labs, swimming past the breeder continually asking if we knew what we were getting into; we jumped in with two feet. With hindsight being 20/20, we were about to learn our lesson. Ever seen that poor sap walking his dog, or more like being drugged by his dog zigging and zagging all around, towing his human whose holding on for dear life? Ever go to friends/families house, knock on the door and things start going bat crazy. Dog’s barking, them cracking open the door while holding back the dog, yelling at them to be quiet while trying to shimmy out without the dog getting loose or getting jumped on for your troubles? Ever heard the story of someone's dog jumping the fence or bolting out the door. Leaving the family to put up fliers and make calls down the tree with canvases in the neighbourhood for hours or days, eventually finding their furry loved one or possibly not at all? Yep, that was still me on both accounts, unfortunately. I would see those people, who actually walked their dogs and wow, did I wish that could be me. I was one of those dog owners who thought they would just grow out of it as they got older, they're just puppies so I’d give them time to calm down. Well two years later, they hadn’t calmed down and sadly, we never got the chance to see if they would with age. These two, a true brother-sister combo, never went anywhere without each-other. One left the room and the other quickly followed, almost like they were joined at the hip. So one night, when the gate door wasn’t fully shut, they went on their last romp around their “hood”; where they were struck on the train tracks not one minute from my front door. One year later, we finally decide its time to try again. That’s when I said to myself that we were not going to make the same mistakes again. We were going to train this new dog and in my search for knowledge, I found out “dog training” is for movies/tv dogs. Service dogs, scent dogs and so on. While watching a video one day of some puppies still with their mother, I saw a dog sit, wait (stay) walk (come) and lay down all on its own. That was my lightbulb moment, the dog doesn’t need training, the humans do. Dogs already know what to do, you can see it in a six week old puppy who sits, stays and comes all on its own. It's the humans that need to be trained as the “leader” so the dog will follow. It’s all about the respect, in order for the dog to respect your needs, your wants, your desires and it’s simple that you need to respect theirs. You can teach any dog to sit, stay, come on command; it can be done using fear and intimidation or out of respect and love. All four different acts at both ends of the spectrum, the real key is getting the dog to want to do those things, which can only happen with the use of respect and love, and so on. That’s where I come in. To train you, giving you the “tools” you need so your furry friends can trot beside you on the walk, sees the open door and decides she would rather stay by your side then run down the road. We want YOU to be the Pack Leader, no matter the task or scale of the furry family in tow, you too can be prepared to lead them with respect and confidence.
