Authors (20)

Melissa (she/her) is FDSA's resident marketing geek. She teaches several marketing classes here at FDSA, including: Marketing for Pet Professionals and Building a Wordpress Website. In addition to her marketing classes, Melissa teaches FDSA's Treibball Classes and workshops. (Click here for full bio and to view Melissa's upcoming courses)...

Irith Bloom finds joy in helping people teach with kindness while developing choice-rich environments for their companion animals. ...

Loretta Mueller (she/her) has been involved in agility since 2003 with her first rescue dog, Ace. Since then she has been involved in a variety of dog training activities including USBCHA herding, competitive obedience, rally obedience, and service dog training. In 2007, Loretta...

Ann Smorado (she/her) was a horse crazy teenager who started training dogs in 2006 when she got her first labrador retriever, Miles. What started out as taking a puppy class to make sure she would have a well mannered dog, or at least a dog that didn’t destroy the house, quickly grew into a passion. (Click here for full bio and to view Ann's upcoming courses)...

Christopher Tiller is an experienced developer passionate about dog training and behavior. He was first introduced to the dog training world when he adopted his reactive dog, Stanley, and became a massive dog training nerd. He enjoys working with his two pups, Stanley and Missile.

With a background in development, Christopher loves to identify pain points in dog training and develop solutions. He has been developing TailScribe, a tracking tool for dog trainers, and is committed to creating more tools to assist his fellow trainers.

When he’s not in his cave developing or playing games with the pups, he likes passing the time as a part-time information sponge or learning how to use his body in calisthenics.

Julie Flanery (she/her), CPDT-KA has been working professionally with dogs and their handlers since 1993. She focuses on the needs of the dog and helping people form a strong relationship, through clear communication, and positive reinforcement. She has placed Obedience...

I have been training and competing for several decades in a variety of sports including Hunt Tests, Field Trials, Nosework, Agility and Rally. My first love has always been competition obedience. I have been fortunate to win the AKC National Obedience Championship four times with three different dogs. (Click here for full bio and to view Petra's upcoming courses)...

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Barbara Currier (she/her) got involved with agility shortly after adopting her Chihuahua. In 2004, Barbara and her husband Michael were relocated to VA and shortly after she started teaching agility at All Dog Adventures (fka All Dog Playskool) in Richmond, VA. (Click here for full bio and to view Barbara's upcoming courses)...

Caden (he/they), CCUI, is a dog trainer, writer and traveler currently based in Mexico. Caden has been fond of dogs of all sizes, shapes and personalities for as long as they can think - especially the so called difficult ones. After training the dachshund of their early teenage years in traditional ways at their local obedience club, they learned about clicker training and got hooked on motivational methods ...

Sue (she/her) graduated from Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in Ithaca, NY, in 1980. After three years in private practice, she joined the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps. While on active duty, she completed a 3 year residency in small animal surgery at Texas A&M University...

Andrea Harrison (she/her) is passionate about all species, including dogs and humans! Having lived with dogs her whole life, Andrea was an early convert to positive training for people and dogs. She has taken this message to the media many times...

Hannah Branigan (she/her) has been training dogs and teaching people for more than 10 years. She is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA) and a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner (KPA-CTP). Hannah is the owner of Wonderpups, LLC, and teaches workshops...

Laura Waudby (she/they) trains and competes in obedience, rally, and agility. She was halfway to her OTCH with her UDX corgi, Lance, before his uexpected early retirement. She also has championship titles in USDAA and UKI. By day...

Denise Fenzi (she/her) has competed in a wide range of dog sports – titling dogs in obedience (AKC and UKC), tracking (AKC and schutzhund), schutzhund (USA), mondioring (MRSA), herding (AKC), conformation (AKC), and agility (AKC). She is best known for her flashy and precise ...

Barbara had trained herding for over 30 years. She started with traditional training and later decided to learn positive reinforcement training and apply it to herding. After a decade of trial and error, she has developed a proven method for training herding. She starts dogs away from livestock, usually in her home and backyard. She then takes her dogs near penned stock and eventually to loose livestock. It is much easier for dogs to learn herding skills without the huge distraction of livestock in the picture and later add stock to the training.

Sally started herding with no prior herding experience but was an excellent positive dog trainer. She taught agility, tricks, and basic obedience to her dogs and in her classes. Sally worked with Barb over the internet and trained her Border Collie puppy, Renn, into the South African Sheepdog Association's National Reserve Junior Champion in 2016.

Sharon (she/her) has been a professional animal trainer for 30 years. She has been both a presenter and trainer in a range of animal shows, and currently operates, a dog training and behaviour consulting business based in Newcastle, Australia. (Click here for full bio and to view Sharon's upcoming courses.)...

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