“At the age of 77, I became a first time dog “parent.” Rosie is a Golden Doodle and is, of course, adorable. I got Shelly’s name from a friend and I contacted her via email. She responded right away and asked some important questions about Rosie and what I was looking for in a puppy trainer. We have met four times and each training session (actually training ME to train Rosie) was valuable.
Basically, Shelly’s training model translates to me as: reward the desired behavior and ignore and distract undesirable behavior with an alternative.
Shelly is a delightful person, and she clearly loves dogs. And Rosie clearly loves her.”
— Joan W. and Rosie
Testimonials
“Shelly transformed my relationship with Freya, my dog. She helped me reframe my thinking about training from behavior correction to strength building. Now, I lean into Freya’s inherent abilities and channel her energy into productive activities. I’m more consistent in how I respond — praising positive behaviors and redirecting troublesome ones. Freya’s happier with this approach and so am I. Thank you, Shelly! ”
— Laura C. and Freya
“Our family has known Shelly Thrall for over a year now. She was introduced to us by a mutual friend when we got our puppy, Cisco, who is the first dog we have ever had. We were looking for someone to help with training.
Shelly came to our house for several sessions and worked with us and Cisco. She told us we seemed to be doing fine after the basics, and to let us know if we ever needed anything else. But we - and Cisco - liked her so much, we still have her come once a week!
She helped us through the challenges of the puppy and adolescent periods, always reassuring us that Cisco’s behavior was normal, offering education about dog behaviors, pointing out Cisco’s strengths, and kindly training both us and Cisco to get through behaviors that were challenging.
Shelly uses ethical, positive reinforcement training techniques with Cisco, like clicker/marker training, target training, and behavior chains.
Shelly continues to solidify the basics, and she has been doing what I presume is more advanced training, like boundary training, playing games with a tunnel and cone, platform stuff and the beginnings of service dog retrieval, just for fun and stimulation!
She brings something really special to her work with dogs, and human/canine interactions. I highly recommend her!”
