Certified Dog Trainers in Vista, California

Certified behavior consultant and trainer with 20+ years of experience working with dogs of all breeds, sizes, temperaments, and quirks! 🌶️Reactive dog specialist 🪷Rooted in science, practiced with mindfulness 🫶 Judgment free ☀️ Serving Vista, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Oceanside, and San Marcos

Sarah is a certified professional dog trainer (CPDT) and is a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner (KPA CTP). She has been training dogs for over 18 years. Her career began as a volunteer dog trainer working with shelter dogs at the San Diego Humane Society & SCPA in 2001. She teaches group dog training classes in Vista, Ca and at the Rancho Coastal Humane Society, Encinitas, where she founded the "Pawsitive Practices" trainer-in-training team of volunteers whom she mentors. Together, through best training practices, they help to make a difference in the lives of the shelter dogs. Sarah also is the training evaluator for the shelter's Pet Assisted Therapy program. Sarah specializes in dogs who have aggression, fear or reactivity issues. She also is a puppy expert and runs the online Pawsitive Puppy Training Academy. Through safe, humane and positive training methods Sarah helps new puppy and dogs owners stopping feeling disappointed in or stressed out by their pets and start feeling confident that they will behave no matter what the circumstance. Sarah is a wife, mom to three young boys and proud pet owner to her rescue dog Nick, rescue pet pig Toby and rescue horse Mahoney. She also enjoys spending her spare time with her 4 cats, goats and chickens.

We’re on a Mission from Dog! Our mission is to help you understand how dogs learn and why they do what they do. This enables you to effectively communicate with your canine friend. Once you understand what drives your dog’s behavior, you’ll know how to get the behaviors you want. We teach you techniques based on formulated learning theories that show you how to become the leader.

I use positive reinforcement methods only and offer several services. They include: private in-home lessons, group classes, behavior consultations, home school training, new dog adjustment training, puppy selection and more!

Pawsitive Guidance Dog Training & Pet Sitting Services Positive Reinforcement dog training and behavioral management – also offering pet sitting and dog walking. APDT & PSI Certified – Pet First Aid Certified

I am an Animal Behavior College Certified dog trainer since 2014. Since my certification, I have volunteered at local rescues and I was an approved trainer at Pets 4 Vets Chicagoland, where I gained much experience through their trainers workshops. I was the lead dog trainer and Kennel Manager for a working dog company called Wild Goose Chase in the Chicagoland area where we used highly trained Border Collies to humanely manage wildlife such as Canada Geese and Gulls in private and public properties. We used our border collies on the beaches of Lake Michigan to chase gulls, lowering the EColi levels in the water by upwards of 80 , making the water safer to swim in. During the off seasons we kept our dogs agile and ready to work by doing herding lessons, and Penn Vet Working Dog Center came to our facility and trained us in canine stretching/fitness over a week-long workshop. I ran dog fitness and taught it to our handlers daily to keep our dogs fit and safe from injury. I also assisted in training and caring for the dogs in our sister kennel at Canine Detection and Inspection Services, where we used dogs to detect bed bugs in many different properties. After WGC, I worked with a CPDT-KA certified dog trainer who specialized in fear and anxiety cases. There I became an AKC Evaluator and taught classes for AKC Tricks, AKC Rally, AKC Canine Good Citizen, agility (though I have the least experience in this), as well as in-home lessons and Reactive Dog classes. The special thing about our reactive dog classes were that you had to do in-home lessons until your dog could be within 20 feet of its triggers before ever entering the classes. There was NEVER a reaction in the classes because we NEVER wanted the dogs to practice the addicting behavior that is reactivity. We saw much success with many different types of dogs, from obedience, to aggression. During the Pandemic, I ran virtual classes online through zoom that showed the same results as what we saw in our in-person c