My love for dogs goes as far back as I remember. As a child I’d build jumps out of broom sticks and buckets, playing Agility with our Lab mix family dog. When people asked me what I wanted to become my answer was always: a veterinarian. I wanted to help pets but soon realized that also meant making tough decisions and as I got older I had to accept the fact that I’d take all this sadness and each story home with me. 

Dogs continued to play an important part in my life and I still had the urge to make a difference and work with animals so I focused on nutrition and helping them feel better through a healthy diet and lifestyle choices. For 5 years I worked for Planet Paws and got to meet some very amazing veterinarians, trainers and researchers. 

It was during that time I also learnt what an impact stress can have on your body. And I’d experience first hand what it means for people to live with dogs they don’t feel connected with or whose fear and anxiety is affecting their everyday life. 

Which lead me to discover another way of helping dogs: by giving them the best foundation to live a stress free, happy life and to teach dogs and humans how to effectively communicate with each other.

I am a certified dog trainer as well as a member of IAABC (International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants). French Bulldogs are my absolute heart breed. I am proud to say that my dogs are the most performance titled French Bulldogs in the country and one of them is the #1 Scent Detection Frenchie in Canada. Between the 4 dogs they have earnt over 30 titles, of which many were ‘First in breed’ (meaning it’s the first time a dog of that breed earnt a particular title in Canada). Akiva, my top sniffer dog, won the 2020 Boneyard Challenge (Scent detection) in NS in her level and placed 6th nationally with over 150 dogs competing ( including German Shepherds, Labs, Beagles, all kinds of amazing detection breeds). 

The breed has a reputation of being ‘stubborn’ or ‘hard to train’ but I have come to find out it’s actually very fun to work with them and yes, you can successfully train them.

My mantra is : Anything is possible. Set yourself a goal, work for it, believe in it and you will be able to achieve it.

Whilst dog sports play a huge role in our life, the most crucial and important training-, in fact the most crucial part in general, is laying a good foundation and bringing your dog into an overall balanced mind space. And this begins in puppyhood. To be exact, it begins at just a few days old. A good breeder will handle each puppy, follow ENS (early neurological stimulation) protocol and in the best case scenario raise the litter with AviDog, Puppy culture or other puppy raising and socialization programs. 

Without going into too much detail and technicalities, simply put: brain chemistry in a puppy changes after 12 weeks. It actually already goes through minor changes before then, but what is important to understand about the 12 week mark is that novelty (new things) start to trigger a fear response and can cause fear imprinting. 

As an example: A 6 week old puppy will not be afraid of an umbrella. They may temporarily get startled when the umbrella opens but they instantly recover and do not associate any negative feelings with the umbrella. 

If this puppy goes on a rainy day walk with you at 14 weeks old it won’t care about people holding umbrellas since it’s brain has already built a positive or neutral association. 

Now let’s pretend this 14 week old puppy has never been exposed/seen an umbrella before. They will very likely bark (offensive fear) or shut down (defensive fear). Either way, the umbrella will be impacting your walk and potentially even future walks since the scary umbrellas were held by people, and now those people may stay scary in the puppy’s eyes even without the umbrella.

There are many skills and experiences a puppy should be able to make before a certain time window closes. And that’s exactly what my puppy classes focus on. They are not your typical ‘learn to sit and leash walk’ class. While we will of course be covering basic cues, my main priority is to get your puppy ready and prepared for whatever the world may throw at them. I want you to be able to take your dog anywhere and for your dog to live an anxiety and fear free life. 

Prevention in puppyhood is by far easier than treatment in adult dogs. 

I don’t want you to have to message a trainer 6 months from now because your puppy is leash reactive, barking at joggers and bikes, or having to be sedated to get it’s nails clipped. 

Research and studies have shown we can avoid these situations with a proper approach in puppy training. 

Your puppy is past it’s imprinting phase? You own an adult dog? Fear not! While it will take longer and require a bit more work and effort, we can condition your dog to accept stimuli and approach the world with a positive mindset; no matter the age.

Our classes will teach you valuable skills that will strengthen the relationship you have with your dog, leave your dog more balanced and relaxed and most importantly: You two will have so much fun!