Happy Paws

As a business woman and as a dog trainer one of the best ways to strengthen my abilities is surround myself in the company of other passionate pet business owners.

Having someone who I can bounce ideas off of or pull knowledge from can be an invaluable resource in my field. I also believe in sharing our skills and support with others who want to be trainers or groomers, many of you know several times a year I will take on a mentee so that I can teach more people about positive reinforcement dog training methodology, client relationships, breed awareness, etc. I'm always incredibly proud to see one of my students succeed, canine or human; it's an uplifting experience.

Recently I had the huge honor of attending a meeting of other professional trainers in Atlanta.  They came from all around the country as far south as Hawaii and as far north as Alaska!
It was the first time I'd ever been asked to sit in while training methodology and practices were discussed at length by those who spearheaded the positive reinforcement methodology movement for my colleagues and I.  
I have to say I was giddy to finally meet them as many of these people wrote the books I studied from in College, or the ones I read from now to keep my skills sharp and my company growing.

During the meeting several topics were covered under the formal agenda and each of them  would be followed by focus group-like forum for attendees to talk on treatment plans, questions, and I was able to offer advice on specific test cases used as examples. To date, I think this has to be one of the most exciting of my career as a Dog Trainer. Hearing all these well seasoned trainers who make my 9 years of training look like childs play offering thoughts and techniques was truly inspiring and invigorating. 

After the meeting a mini-conference followed where individual specialists would speak on things like canine geneticism, canine husbandry and rehabilitation, all the way through to some of my core values in understanding wolf behavior and characteristics to name a few of the chosen topics.

My mentor trainer Mary Livingston, was one of the guest speakers at the conference and spoke on several of the wolf-based topics.  It was wonderful to see her after several years and having time to catch up and learn about how things have been going at the wolf rehab/preserve in Ketchican, AK.
I found out several of the wolves I helped raised in the 2009 are now part of a healthy breeding program to help protect the dying numbers of gray and artic wolves.  Also, each of the four rescued pups we got the day before I began working there were re-released into the wild and are being tracked via transmitter to collect data on feeding schedules and pack movement beyond the preserve.  

I got to go to four of the lectures but had to change my plans a bit because shortly after the conference began everyone became ill with some awful achey, fever based illness.  But hey, before that I learned a bunch!

I will also have recordings of all the lectures I missed via Itunes for several months, so really I didn't miss a thing. Gotta love technology!

At any rate... I can't wait to share all this great energy with my clients when I start work back on Monday!