08/29/2026
Meet the dogs behind the dog trainer. ❤️🐾
From left to right: Frank, Charlie, Peggy & Sugar.
My little pack of knuckleheads, and four of my greatest teachers.
If you told me a decade ago that someday my full-time job would be learning about dogs, helping people understand their dogs, playing with dogs, training dogs… and then coming home to these four, I’m not sure I would have believed you.But somehow, this gets to be my life. ❤️
These four have made me a better trainer, teacher and human.
Not because they’re perfect.
Farrrrr from it. 😂
Between them, we’ve navigated resource guarding, reactivity, anxiety, complicated pack dynamics, some very ADHD-like traits (think: a brain with 47 tabs open 😂) and severe cases of FOMO.But they aren’t my first teachers.
Before them, I loved dogs with severe dog aggression, intense reactivity and resource guarding.
And before I was the trainer helping someone else through those behaviors, I was the person living with them.
I remember the early morning walks hoping we wouldn’t see another dog.
Scanning ahead. Crossing streets. Changing directions. Planning outings around avoiding triggers.
I remember our world getting smaller and smaller.
Those dogs taught me things I could never have learned from a book.
They taught me what it feels like to deeply love a dog while also struggling with their behavior and big feelings. They taught me patience, humility and just how much emotion can exist on the other end of a leash.
Every one of them helped shape the trainer I eventually became.
And these four continue that education every day.
They remind me to slow down, pay attention and listen to what a dog is communicating instead of focusing only on the behavior we see.
Sometimes the answer is training.
Sometimes it’s management.
Sometimes it’s changing the environment.
Sometimes it’s more support.
And sometimes it’s accepting the dog standing in front of you for exactly who they are.
I love each of these four for who they are, not who I think they should be.
And that has become one of the biggest influences on the way I train today: Meet the dog in front of you.
They are a pretty big part of the story behind what I do.
