Introduction to Pat Miller

Some of you may already know me - and some of you may not. As I look forward to writing many more posts for this Puppyworks Blog, I want to start by sharing my background so you all know where I'm coming from. (I promise that future blogs will be more directly related to dog training and behavior!!)

I have always known, from the time I was a small child, that my life would be about working with animals. I grew up thinking I was going to be a veterinarian. (I suspect many of you were in the same boat!) I did very well in high school (Honor Roll, National Honor Society, etc.) but I ran headlong into a brick wall in college with Organic Chemistry. I was failing that class. I wanted out. And in my family you were ***supposed*** to go to college and succeed - my Dad was a college professor, my Mom was a college graduate...

As I expected, my Dad wasn't happy when I told him I was quitting school. "Now that you're a failure," he said, "what do you want to do with your life?" I said I wanted to work professionally with horses, so my parents sent me to the Potomac Horse Center (Gaithersburg, MD), after which I went to work at Burgundy Ridge Farm in Mequon, Wisconsin, riding hunters and jumpers and teaching riding lessons.

Yes - this is me:

MY BIG CLAIM TO FAME IN THE HORSE WORLD: I taught Beezie Madden (as a small child) to post to the trot and jump over cross rails!! (For those who don't know her - Beezie Madden has won two Olympic medals gold medals, one silver and one bronze in Grand Prix jumping - jumps that are 5+ feet high and 6+ feet wide.)

I was having a great time with my dream equestrian career, when I met a guy - and as guy's can do, he turned my life upside down. Again. We decided to buy a used school bus, turn it into a mobile home, go to California and be hippies. So we did.

We landed in Marin County, just north of San Francisco (the other end of the Golden Gate Bridge) and I started volunteering at the Marin Humane Society, fell in love, got hired, and was there for 20 years. I got to arrest people who were mean to animals, do dog and cockfighting busts, met Paul, my now-husband of 37 years (also an animal protection professional) and for my last 10 years there was Director of Operations, second in command after the Executive Director. LOVED IT!!!

In the meantime, Paul had taken a position as Director of Operations at the Monterey SPCA - a couple of hours south of San Francisco. Too far away. I made the very hard decision to leave Marin, move down to Monterrey/Santa Cruz to be with Paul, and lunch my training business, Peaceable Paws.

One of the many things I loved about my career at Marin was that we often went outside our own jurisdiction to help agencies all over California with disasters (fires, floods, earthquakes) and major cruelty and animal fighting cases. Ironically, as I was getting ready to leave Marin to become a dog training professional I turned to Paul and told him that one of my biggest regrets that my circle of influence on the welfare of animals would be smaller - only reaching clients in close proximity to me in Monterey and Santa Cruz.

Little did I know... I started writing for Whole Dog Journal, wrote some books, travelled around the country giving seminars, then around the world (Australia! New Zealand!), moved to Fairplay, Maryland by way of Chattanooga, Tennessee, started my dog trainer academies... and lo and behold, it turned out that my reach is far larger than it ever would have been if I stayed at Marin.

Many of you know that I am a crossover trainer. I used to use what I now call "old-fashioned" methods - choke chains, verbal and physical "corrections." (No, I never used prong or shock collars.) And I was good at it - earned obedience titles with my dogs, with scores in the upper 190's. Then one day my wonderful Terrier mix Josie hid under our back deck rather than submit to another round of "ear-pinch" as I struggled to get her to pick up a metal dumbbell for the Utility degree competition with the Mixed Breed Dog Club of California..

I stopped training. I started learning about the science of behavior and learning, and all the possibilities of positive/force-free training. And I have never looked back. You could not pay me enough, today, to go back to those old ways. And while it pains me today to see far too many "balanced" trainers still using tools and methods that rely on the use of pain, coercion and fear, I am thrilled by the large number of trainers today who are are truly science-based and force-free - and how many clients come to us either specifically seeking positive-reinforcement training, or relieved to discover they don't have to do the bad things to their dogs that the last trainer told them to do.

So - welcome to my blog. Welcome to my world!! And, as promised, my future blogs here will address more specific challenges and successes from my dog training and behavior practice. Please feel free to comment and ask questions - I would love for this to be a participatory forum!!!