In Dogs We Trust- Professional, Positive Dog Training

04/06/2025

Interested in learning more about how to take a great portrait of your pet? Here is a wonderful article featuring our own lead trainer Melissa

Two experts share industry tricks to help you capture one adorable photo after another.

04/06/2025

Wow! What an amazing write up for our animal actors course on the Karen Pryor Academy.

Thank you Sarah! 😁

Life-stuff happening at the start of 2025 meant that, frustratingly, a bunch of things were put on hold. To inject some positive back into what was otherwise a pretty horrible time, I signed up to 2 short courses that I was interested in, this being one of them.

Waaaaay back when, one of my VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education - the last 2 years of High School) classes I took was Drama. This gave me not only performance but life skills. Couple that with my passion for animal behaviour and training, and learning about animals in the acting world is a natural fit.

I've been a big fan of Melissa's Millett's ( The Ultimutts & In Dogs We Trust- Professional, Positive Dog Training ) training for a while: anyone that can train a cat, let alone train cats for film work (credits include the film 'Pet Sematary'), has my utmost respect! Melissa is Canada-based and works in both film and runs live performances (including being on Canada's Got Talent in 2024) with her personal team (including a number of deaf animals!) and with other animals, sourced for various roles.

Like many courses I do & memberships I'm in, this one too was focused on dogs & cats, so I'm always translating in my head how things would work with horses. I really like that though - there's a lot we can learn from other species and their trainers. Learning that's not yet available or readily available in the horse-world.

It was really fascinating to better understand the ask of animals used in film & how to train for that, and engage in the film industry to advocate for animal welfare along the way. But also, so many of the skills have real-life, real-world applications and it was interesting to think beyond film to what these were, for example, teaching a dog to tether for film, is super similar to teaching a horse to tie-up.

When you learn with people whose work you like, it can go either way - you end up realising they're not what you thought, or you discover they are as awesome and sometimes more so, than you expected. Melissa is the latter, being a wonderful teacher throughout the course - so warm, friendly, welcoming, responsive, flexible and open about her experiences and the reality of the industry. Not to mention, an excellent animal trainer too, able to think & respond creatively to each individual animal & human combination.

I love adding to my knowledge, for myself and my animals, but also, so that I can offer you the best experience possible when you're learning with us 😍 I'm looking forward to sharing more with you in different ways throughout this year... watch this space for more on what's coming 😍

But also, if animal training and film are your thing, keep an eye out for when Karen Pryor Academy run this course again, as it might be one for you to join in on. It's a live class with a combination of pre-recorded content, weekly live classes (which worked well for Melb/Syd time) and a community space to engage in. I'd recommend it ❤

❤️🐴❤️

03/24/2025

It can be tempting in our training to skip the little steps.

It’s great to have faith in our dogs but if we stick to small steps, it’s so much clearer to them what we want.

The result is getting to the end goal faster with a much more solid behaviour.

03/24/2025

Of course our actions often have an impact on the way our dogs behave. But just because they act differently with a friend, family, dog walker, day care, does not mean it’s a reflection on you.

More often than not we are seeing suppression, the same way we might see children behave better around someone they don’t know well or even us as adults. It takes confidence and a feeling of safety to truly be ourselves. So once we are comfortable we are seeing our dogs feel safe enough to show us their true behaviours, then we can address them if necessary.

03/02/2025

It’s amazing the things you can accomplish with positive reinforcement training! Fergie shows off his amazing stay

03/02/2025

Fergie is doing an excellent job with loose leash walking in puppy classes!

02/09/2025

Izzy was our first private lesson yesterday.. how do you like those ears?! Too cute

01/29/2025

We are excited to announce that our founder/lead trainer Melissa Millett is once again invited to present at ClickerExpo in Chicago!

What an honour to be recognized alongside the top positive reinforcement animal trainers in the world!

Let ClickerExpo be the catalyst to take your passion for animal training to new heights of creativity and innovation in ways only an in-person experience can deliver

01/29/2025

LAST CHANCE to register for the Animal Actors LIVE class with our founder/head trainer Melissa Millett

Learn how to have solid behaviours for film.
Enjoy a great community of trainers
Curriculum is peppered with theory lessons

https://karenpryoracademy.com/.../animal-actors-live.../

The 8 Excel training spots went almost right away, but there are still audit/engage spots left!

01/27/2025

A sneak peek at the ClickerExpo presentation by our lead trainer and founder Melissa Millett

12/18/2024

ENROLMENT STARTS TODAY!

🐾 Online learning opportunity 🐾

Learn the behaviours for film 🎥 🎬

Whether you are interested in working in film, or learning from world renowned trainer Melissa Millett, join us for this amazing learning opportunity!