Ever since I was a little guy, I’ve always been overwhelmingly drawn to dogs. My very first dog, Brandy, came from a cardboard box at a flea market as a puppy. I quickly grew attached to her, and her to me. I instinctively started training her without even realizing it. I could get her to do just about anything that I asked, including going for walks in the neighborhood off-leash. Fast forward to my late teens when I was living in Philadelphia, where I shared a driveway with my neighbor who had recently gotten a puppy named Nala. I quickly grew attached to her, and began to train her as well. I would take her for walks through Pennypack park off-leash. Then, in my twenties, I moved out west to pursue work on ranches training horses. Interestingly enough, most of the places that I went to work had dogs they used to move and gather cattle and sheep. They also used other types of dogs that protected the livestock from predators.
After awhile, I became more and more interested in how to train these dogs and how much I could get out of them. Throughout this time, I continued to help people with their personal dogs and any issues that they might have had with them. Due to a horseback riding injury, I came back to the Philadelphia area where I met and bought the smartest puppy that I had ever seen - Pepper. As she grew, so did my knowledge in training dogs. I raised Pepper in New Hope, Pennsylvania where we would walk through town, up and down the canal, and hike through the woods - with Pepper being off-leash the entire time. We quickly became inseparable, and she began to show a talent for helping me train other dogs. Within the next few years, I took a job managing a large livestock farm in New England, where I would need another dog to work sheep and cattle.
This brought my dog Cash into my life. Cash was an absolute natural when it came to working sheep and cattle. Pepper and I began to train him, and he quickly became just like all of my other dogs, where I could walk him anywhere off-leash. After seeing Cash’s abilities working sheep, I decided to pursue sheepdog trials. Cash has been and continues to be successful in sheepdog trials. A couple years ago, I moved back to the Philadelphia area. Shortly thereafter, I bought a very well bred Border Collie, May, who I named after my grandmother. She quickly became just like Pepper and Cash - well trained and off-leash at all times. May has also become a good sheepdog trials dog. As if three dogs weren’t enough, I decided to import a puppy from Wales - Bracken. She too, like my other three dogs, quickly became fully trained and off-leash. She has also become a tremendous trialing dog. After all of my success in training my own four dogs, while also successfully training other people’s dogs, I became inspired to pursue training dogs full time for the public.