How can we help you with your dog? Training can make all the difference in the relationship you have with your pet. We train companion, therapy, and service dogs. We work on manners, leash skills, and basic obedience. Additionally, we can address problem puppy behaviors like jumping, biting, and chewing. We offer private lessons in your home or at the kennel, or your dog can stay with us for a three-week board and train to be fully immersed in our program. Its important to know that you, as the dog's person/family, may need to change some things at home to ensure that your dog is successful at home after training. Dogs need exercise, mental stimulation, and leadership they can trust. Training for the humans is just as important as training for the dogs.

Dogs love it here! We have two climate-controlled buildings, one with crates of all sizes and one with indoor/outdoor runs. We provide lots of play time and mental stimulation in our fabulous doggie play yard, and we have nine acres of shady land on which to go for walks.

From my earliest memory, I wanted to be a veterinarian or animal trainer. I earned my Bachelor of Science in Agriculture/Education from Sam Houston State University in 1994. I taught high school agriculture as my first out-of-college assignment, but left to teach pre-k children when I became a wife and mother. I left teaching (after twenty-five years) to work with dogs full-time. While my experience with animals always helped me in the classroom, my experience in the classroom has also been invaluable in my work with animals.

In 2008 I trained and tested with my dog, Orange Crush, to be a therapy dog team. In the years since, Crush and I visited all kinds of environments and we later added three other dogs to our therapy dog fleet. The experience we gained has allowed me to become an instructor and evaluator for Intermountain Therapy Animals, as well as President of Southeast Texas Paws 4 Love, the premier group of therapy dogs and handlers in Southeast Texas.

I began working with service dogs and handlers in June 2016 as a trainer for A Cause to Give Us Paws (Give Us Paws), a non-profit organization dedicated to helping US Veterans train their own service dogs. While working with them, I obtained my CDPT-KA (Certified Professional Dog Trainer- Knowledge Assessed) certificate. (I did not renew this credential but I mention it because I did earn it.) I thoroughly enjoyed the work and wished to pursue it further. When Give Us Paws revamped their program to only serve Houston clients and trainers, I applied with Service Dog Express, which is a nationwide program. I have worked through Service Dog Express since September 2017, and have worked with amazing clients and dogs who have become friends and family to me.

After studying many different types of dog training, including "purely positive reinforcement" and "balanced" methods, I found my niche with relationship-based training like Suzanne Clothier and Nelson Hodges teach. We have found that if you develop a meaningful relationship with the dog, the dog becomes a willing partner. In our human friendships, we don't have to bribe or punish our friends to be able to enjoy doing things with them. In order for this to work with our dogs, we must first be relevant to the dog, and learn how to relate to him. If the dog views us as weak or foolish, the dog takes over and makes choices that we may find disagreeable or even intolerable in our world. So we need to show them how to live in our world, but we must first understand theirs.