Sabrina Myracle
I grew up in Phoenix Arizona knowing I loved dogs and used to the constant companionship of my family dogs, but uncertain about the exact role they could play in my future. After Graduating high school I made the decision to study college in state to permit myself to get a young Australian Shepherd, with the goal of teaching him tricks, and potentially competing in agility. I fell in love with shaping tricks and running obstacle courses pretty quickly and I spent my free time finding everything I could on getting better at positively motivating a dog.
Mugsy wasn’t the best behaved puppy, but he was very smart, young and I figured obedience class would shape that right up. We went through several rounds of obedience and socialization progressing smoothly through each session as the youngest and smartest dog in the course. Despite, all this time spent in class, and spent training. Mugsy remained a demanding, insecure, and rude puppy. There was a massive gap in how I was training him. I began to study confidence building, and stopping demanding behaviors. Around the time Mugsy was just over a year old we were in a pretty awesome place in our relationship. I got over confident and brought Banjo home from the Arizona Humane Society.
Let me tell you, nothing will wake you up to gaps in your training quicker than a fearful reactive dog, whose afraid of cars, strangers, and cyclists. I began to study rehabilitation and reaching out on social media to trainers who specialized in behavioral issues, even at one point scoring a skype call with Blake Rodriguez of Dream Come True K9.
At some point in my mind I thought adding a puppy to the mix would be fun, and fell in love with my little bear Barley, a pup with more confidence than I had ever imagined a dog could have. I shared my dogs training on social media, I talked about different concepts, and I had a blast working with three completely different individual dogs. All my reaching out to trainers, and sharing my personal dogs training paid off, when I applied for a local dog training internship, and they already knew who I was and what I was about. I gained experience working with various breeds, dog sizes, behavioral issues and training techniques when I worked and studied with RJ Hebner my mentor who now works out of Baltimore running ZenRJ Dog Training.
I am confident and secure in my ability to make a positive impact on your relationship with your dog. I will always continue to reach out and learn how I can do better by every dog and person I encounter.
