We’ve all been there, right? Picked out a pup, brought her home, and watched the ensuing chaos unfold when your cute-and-cuddly pup turned out to be a wall-chewing, fear aggressive, cat chasing menace.

No? Just me? Okay, well, I started training dogs back in high school and I thought I was good to go with a sweet Labrador who really just had a couple of quirks that weren’t particularly difficult to work through. Since I thought my easy-as-pie lab was lonely and could use a friend, we can fast forward a few years to Mercy, my little BYB “oops” puppy who was determined to turn me into a trainer that could handle just about any dog. Despite my own determination to adhere to a purely positive, ‘no crates in my house” training style, Mercy had some other ideas.

As good as she was with all of her basics in controlled settings, there was just something missing — this piece of her that just needed a little bit more from me to work through her issues. From an exceedingly high prey drive, some nasty dog and human reactivity, a lot of resource guarding, and a pinch of plain old selective hearing, Mercy pushed me towards more balanced training, leading to my developing a deeper understanding of canine psychology, breed fulfillment, enrichment, and communication. Mercy taught me that an e-collar isn’t a torture device.

Despite all of our hurdles, Mercy ended up being the first dog I could take on off-leash hikes. We went for bike rides together. Mercy was a champ around new friends and even helped me during training sessions with other reactive dogs! I ended up being a better trainer for and because of her.These days, my primary focus has become enhancing the relationships we have with our dogs through clear communication, boundaries, and a language of consequence, praise, and reward, resulting in well-rounded, confident, secure members of the family in the form of our furry friends.

My goal is to help as many dogs as possible (especially the ones like our Mercy girl) keep their fur-ever homes — that bit of extra training goes a long way.