My dog training journey started with my own dogs. I’ve had dogs for my whole life and they were always members of my family. Like many people I was taught to use correction methods to train my dogs. That was all I knew so that’s what I used. Jump forward to the year I brought home my new dog, a border collie puppy I named Ronan. I started him in the same obedience classes I had taken my other dogs to but Ronan seemed different when we were there. He moved more slowly, wasn’t as playful and generally seemed to be shutting down. I knew then that I needed to be doing something different with him so I started researching other training methods. That started my journey to becoming a dog trainer. Once I started learning about updated, science based training methods, dog behavior and everything else that goes along with this I couldn’t stop trying to learn everything I could. I originally did this for my own dogs but it wasn’t long before other people started asking me to help them with their dogs as well. I also started assisting with teaching classes, agility, obedience, reactive dogs, anything I could get my foot into. It was incredibly rewarding to see the dogs and their humans suddenly understand what we were trying to teach them. The smiles, the sparkle in their eyes, the happy body language…it was amazing! I started to teach classes on my own. This is what I wanted to do with my life!
That’s why I decided to start Janine’s Super K9s dog training. The name is in memory of Ronan, my Super Dog. In agility, Ronan had a habit of leaping off contact obstacles in order to get to the next obstacle more quickly. The rules state the dog is supposed to stay on the obstacle until at least one paw has reached the area at the bottom. Ronan had no time for this nonsense! I always threatened to put a Superman cape on him since he was so determined to leap tall obstacles in a single bound! He may not have been the most skilled agility competitor but he did every run with a grin on his face. He lived his whole life with a grin on his face and that is what I want for my students dogs. I want to help them understand their dogs and to build strong relationships with them by having fun with all of their training.
Janine’s Super K9s is a little bit different type of dog training. I don’t teach the typical Sit-Down-Stay exercises but we do learn those things, just in a different way! The focus is on fun.
“Scientists have determined that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain – unless its done with play, in which case, it takes between 10 and 20 repetitions.” – Dr. Karyn Purvis