By: Jan Casey, Senior Trainer at Courteous Canine, Inc.

Published With Permission.

I love training people and their dogs. It couldn't be more fun. To see the bond grow between owner and dog, to watch as owners realize they have little furry Einsteins, is priceless. This is the most rewarding profession I've ever known. But the time spent preparing for and teaching those classes often eats into available time for training my own canines. The Basic Manners Class I teach conflicted with the group agility lessons I took with Buzz, so Angelica Steinker at Courteous Canine offered private lessons for us until I could rejoin our group class. Given the opportunity to work one-on-one with an agility master, I jumped at the chance!

By Angelica Steinker, M.Ed., CDBC, PDBC

Life is inherently satisfying. Just ask my Border Collie Stevie. Stevie finds joy in playing with anything at all. He sees a toy in every object. Best of all, he likes to pounce on toys. Stevie is my problem child. He has several psychiatric and physical problems. Everyday life is difficult for him and by the end of the day he often has a hard time getting upstairs to go to bed. He lives with chronic pain and torturous thunderstorm phobia, but still every day he finds and holds onto joy.

Photo by Kim Butler

Stevie says that if you can’t hold on to the joy, go to bed and tomorrow you will find more joy.