ABOUT US
| DEBORAH JONES | JUDY
KELLER |
Deborah Jones
I have always loved spending time with and training animals.
In my ‘real life’ I have a Ph.D. in psychology,
specializing in social behavior and learning theories.
I am a full-time assistant professor at Kent State University’s
Stark Campus where I teach a wide variety of psychology
courses, ranging from Statistics to Child Psychology and
everything in between. I have been a long-time advocate
of clicker training as one of the most effective and fun
ways to train dogs. My experience with clicker training
for performance events began in 1992 with Katie, my rescued
Labrador Retriever. Katie showed in obedience and agility,
and was an excellent pet therapy dog, certified by Delta
Society as a Pet Partner.
I taught my first clicker training
group class in 1993, a ‘Tricks’ class. At
the time clicker training was a new and very radical concept
in the dog training world. Choke chains and strong corrections
were the norm (and unfortunately still are in some circles).
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In 1997 I opened my own training
school in order to offer clicker training classes
and lessons. I also wrote several books on clicker
training (Clicker Fun, The Clicker Workbook, Teaching
Clicker Classes), and helped to develop the Clicker
Fun video series, in the late 90s. During that time
I was also very active in the development of the Association
of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT) and served on the Board
of Directors for that organization for several years.
In 1999, I began showing my Papillon, Copper, in agility,
and we were both hooked very quickly. Agility training
and showing quickly took up the majority of my free
time. In 2004 Copper & I achieved a dream goal,
earning the Master Agility Champion (MACH) title and
then two weeks later earning the Utility Dog (UD)
title in obedience. It had long been my goal to achieve
the top titles in agility and obedience with a totally
clicker trained dog, and Copper has been a wonderful
working partner.
These days I spend most of my free
time writing books and articles (primarily for Clean
Run and Dog & Handler) and giving seminars on
clicker and agility training. Copper is now retired from showing and enjoying his 'couch time' tremendously. My younger Papillon,
Luna, loves to work, but has a mild luxating patella
and is unable to show in agility. At 4 lbs., she is
the Queen of the Universe (or at least the house)
and takes that job very seriously. I am currently showing Smudge, a blue Sheltie that I co-own with Judy. He's
quite a handful and very much the opposite of Copper
personality-wise. Training and showing Smudgie is a wild run, but so much fun. There's nothing like the rush of running a high drive, intense dog. As is usually the case, I am learning more from the dog than I am teaching him.
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Judy Keller
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I have loved and owned Shelties
for 20 years. At the current time I have 4: Morgan, Sabre,
Smudge, and Spirit. I discovered agility with Morgan in
1995. After taking a friend’s 8 week beginner class,
I was convinced to enter a trial. Morgan qualified his first
time out and I was hooked. He didn't place in that run and
I stood there thinking to myself "What do I need to do to
get one of those pretty colored ribbons, especially the
blue?" And the rest, as they say, is history. Within 2 years
Morgan had won the International Class at the first AKC
Nationals in Oklahoma, and before long he was on the AKC
USA World Agility Team. Morgan has been a dream dog, quickly
and eagerly learning everything I tried to teach him. In
fact, he taught me about agility! We were on the World Team
3 times from 1997 to 1999, and on the gold medal winning
mini-dog team in 1998. Morgan has earned an ADCH in USDAA
and has a MACH4 in AKC. And, at 9 ½ years old, with
little formal training, he earned his Companion Dog (CD)
title in obedience with 6 consecutive scores in the 190s.
Morgan recently finished out his Novice obedience career
with a HIT at a Sheltie Specialty. |
I decided to get a second Sheltie for agility competition
in 2000. Sabre has a very different personality than Morgan.
He loves to run fast and has tons of drive, but we had trouble
coming together as a team. It was very frustrating to have
such a promising dog, but to have so much trouble pulling
it all together. Then Sabre developed a major dogwalk avoidance
issue. It took more than 2 years to work through it. I met
Deb during that time and we began training together. I had
used a little bit of clicker training, and we used a lot
more to help Sabre through his issues. Sabre was the inspiration
for our In Focus book. We began by writing about the teamwork
and training challenges that we had worked through with
Sabre, and it evolved into a book that addresses foundation
training and relationship issues. Struggling through these
challenges with Sabre has taught me an enormous amount about
dogs and dog training. Sabre has improved dramatically.
He is now working towards his MACH title, and has done well
competing in International classes.
I now also have two young dogs as
well. Spirit came along completely
by chance, I didn’t need another dog at the
time. But, he is a color-headed white Sheltie, which
I have always loved. He has a tri-colored head and
just a few markings on his body. He is very striking,
and has a fabulous personality. I didn’t choose
him as an agility dog, but he has taken to it with
an enormous natural enthusiasm. In fact, he approaches
everything in life with enormous enthusiasm and I
am having a blast training him. I am now starting the training process all over again with Quest, my new baby. He is a tri-colored Sheltie with a wonderful personality. I absolutely love puppies and cannot wait to see how he turns out.
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