What's top of mind for you? What do you need to know to help your dog or a client's dog? I want to know about YOUR INTERESTS.

Throughout my dog training career, my interests have been shaped by the needs of my dogs, client dogs, and requests from other trainers.

The death of a dog propelled me into dog training. When my mother entered a nursing home, and I began visiting her multiple times a week with my new puppy, Gibson, it was evident what was next—therapy dog work (joyous work it was).

Next, fractious puppy Willow was too active for me to begin thinking about therapy dog work, so I launched into standup paddle board training, K9 nose work, and recall training.

My continued success in recall training with puppy Cailie, when she joined our home, led me to write my first book, The Original Rocket Recall™.

When trainers began emailing and calling for printed recall training handouts they could give their clients, the Rocket Recall Instructor Handout Kit was born.

As I continued to see how the Rocket Recall™ training protocol worked with puppy Keaton, I finally launched into bringing my book to life in an online course. After six months of working with an instructional designer to create the course, The Original Rocket Recall Self-Paced Program launched at the end of May and has over 90 photos and illustrations, 42 how-to-videos, along with interactive knowledge checks, learning application exercises, and reflection questions to help cement learning.

Because of the multiple deaths of my young dogs and the compound grief associated with their passing, I started writing my second book, The Death of a Dog Changes you (to be published in early 2025) and created a Grief Support Resources page on our website. Use it and share it as you wish.

Lastly, in summer of 2023 I enrolled in a ten-month, comprehensive Animal Chaplaincy Training program with the Compassion Consortium and graduated just last week.

An animal chaplain provides a range of services focused on the emotional and overall well-being of animals and their guardians. Above all, it's about companioning and providing emotional support to guardians during illness, euthanasia, loss, or significant changes in the animal's or the guardian's life. A key focus is promoting the humane treatment of animals and educating the community on the significance of the human-animal bond. I may soon be offering pro bono services to my veterinarian's clients to help support clients through their animal's end of life illness and euthanasia. Who knows, I may even start an online grief and loss support group.

Let me know what YOU want to hear about in this forum.

Till next time,

Lisa