Tammy has been training dogs for more than 30 years, getting her start as a junior in competitive obedience. She has been doing agility for 24+ years and teaching it for 20.
Tammy believes agility should be fun and challenging for all members of the team without being overwhelming or frustrating. She likes to break things down into manageable pieces for both dog and handler while building teams up and empowering all members to be confident. Tammy’s experience allows her to read both handler and dog and she uses this ability to push teams just enough to encourage them to leave their comfort zones without overfacing them. Tammy wants teams to enjoy the process! If either the dog or the handler is not enjoying the game, Tammy’s first priority is to help teams find the joy that agility training should be. Dogs and humans both are trained using positive, reward-based methods in all of her classes.
Tammy places equal emphasis on training and handling, she makes sure her and her student’s dogs are trained to the level that will be expected on course. She feels the more a dog understands what is being asked, the easier handling becomes. She uses trained skills, verbals, and physical cues to navigate sequences.
Tammy also brings to the table a background as a Veterinary Technician and a Small Animal Massage Practitioner allowing her to see when problems on course may be due to physical limitations and not necessarily training issues.
When not teaching others or training her own dogs, Tammy can be found enjoying the outdoors with her dogs in beautiful Central Oregon. Besides hiking and paddling, Tammy can be found baking treats for others, gardening, reading, recording podcasts with her pal Penny, photographing her adventures, and spending time with family and friends.