16 Oct Team Spotlight: Meet Our Head Trainer Kristen
At Puptopia, we’ve got the best team in the biz! Team Spotlight is a way for you to get to know our amazing team and hear all about the people that train, walk and take care of your pooches. This week we’re featuring a very special team member indeed. She’s our leading doggie guru and she’s just about the best pooch lover we know! Let’s meet Kristen Studioso, CPDT-KA, Head Trainer for Puptopia and NYC Pooch!
Name: Kristen Studioso
Hometown: Mitchel, South Dakota
1. Tell us about your training philosophy.
My philosophy is to teach the dogs of New York how to live in our busy city and help their owners understand them. I use force-free methods that capture and mark behaviors that a dog does on his own, pinpointing the behavior we want/need and shaping it to fit into our human world. Essentially, I encourage creativity and “dog-ness” to help them adapt their natural doggie behavior, rather than asking the dog to conform to something unnatural to them. I only use force-free methods when training because I’ve seen the positive effect it has on dogs, which I haven’t seen with any other form of training.
2. Is force-free training different to positive reinforcement training?
Force-Free is often confused with Positive Reinforcement training, when in reality PR is only a small fragment of FF training. FF means that I’m not only rewarding good behavior, but also using the other leaning quadrants to mold and shape behaviors. I train hands off, letting the dog choose to learn as opposed to forcing them to do anything. An example of force dog training would be leash-popping, leash-corrections, pushing a dog’s bum down when asked to sit, etc. – we don’t do that! Simply put, force-free encourages a dog to be a dog while focusing and promoting their natural doggie behaviors into ones that coincide with what we need from them.
3. What’s your specific area of expertise?
Well, my area of expertise actually spans across the board! I’ve worked with puppies, young and older dogs alike on things like simple day-to-day city safe training and (often) all the way to the extreme, including live-in behavior modification for pups, dogs with severe dog/ human aggression, fear and obsessive behaviors.
If I had to pick my favorite, I would pick Behavior Modification. It’s mostly because I see an extreme behavior modification case as an opportunity to not only assist an unhappy pooch, but also help the humans in his or her life who are being affected as well. When I step in, we work as a team (dog included) to redirect and/or relearn the dogs behaviors – essentially changing the way the dog thinks about certain things. My favorite aspect of dog training overall is definitely the challenge; I never give up on a pup.
4. Have you ever worked with dogs who’ve been trained by other trainers before?
Oh boy! Where to begin? Since the dog-training field is currently unregulated it’s common to come across a dog “trainer” who does more harm than good to a dog and/or the family. As pup parents, it is sometimes very difficult to differentiate between a trainer who knows the art AND the science of training; it’s a crazy, confusing world and finding a reputable source can be difficult.
That being said, one particular pup I’ve worked with (let’s call him George) was convinced that the only option he had to stay safe was to be aggressive to whoever was handling him. It’s a difficult situation to come into and it breaks my heart that someone who calls themselves a trainer could have such a negative effect on an ultimately very sweet dog.
Only time and patience can help a pup relearn how to be a dog and how to trust humans – particularly and especially their loving pooch parents. For George, our journey took us from him proactively attacking the leash holder (in order to prevent discomfort on his behalf) to playing healthy games of tug – on cue – with that exact same leash. When not cued for playtime, Mr. George enjoys getting to be a dog – sniffing those hydrants, saying hi to people and dogs, and most importantly he now knows that listening to his owners is a good thing, not a stressful thing.
5. Do you have any stories about your training experiences with aggressive dogs?
Of course! My beloved client Sadie is a story I love to tell and a great example of the way that I work with aggressive pups. When Sadie was newly rescued by her human mum it was with the understanding that Sadie was very good with other dogs, which was important with lots of other dogs in the family. When Sadie and her mum got to their new home, it was a completely different story. Sadie would switch to “kill-mode” – she was intensely dog aggressive. Even the mere sight of another dog would send her into the red zone. Some health complications combined with her extreme anxiety and aggression toward other dogs caused for a dangerous mix. The only option that was offered to Sadie’s mum was to euthanize her, and that was not an option.
That’s when we teamed up and made it our mission to bring Sadie out of her distressed situation and back to the world. We let her physical wounds do their proper healing and in the meantime worked on her behavior issues. We worked long and hard for over a year to redirect Sadie. Occasionally, working with her even meant impulsively hopping in the shower with Sadie in order to snap her out of an obsessive “I’m-so-happy-to-see-you” humping session (oh boy). The showers and vigorous training efforts (again, all force-free) as a team (me, Sadie & her mum) helped Sadie adjust to our world and control her extra energy and excitement that was being funneled into aggression.
Now, after years of very hard work, Sadie and her mum are able to spend time with relatives, and Ms. Sadie is more than OK with her fur-relative. She even wanted to play nicely with the little schnauzer! A walk through a busy NYC park no longer means Sadie trying to lunge and attack other canines. Now, Sadie and her mum can focus on what she does best- loving and sharing her huge pittie smile!
The moral of this story is that every dog is worth it, no matter how aggressive or “uncontrollable”. It simply takes a bond of love and dedication to build trust and breakdown the wall.
6. Any final words for New Yorkers who are searching for the right dog trainer?
Thanks for reading this today! In the end, every dog is different and my philosophy is more patient and creative than pretty much anyone you’ll meet. I believe there is always an answer to a dog’s problem, but sometimes figuring out exactly what will work for each dog takes some creative thinking, and I look forward to that challenge and bond with every pup I meet.
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