About Brenda

There is nothing I love more than turning new teams onto nose work and watching the dog and handler grow towards a new relationship. 

I have extensive higher level trialing experience with two dog completing at NACSW Elite level and one now an Elite Champion. I also have experience trialing in different organizations ie: – CDSA, CKC, ABC Games and SDDA

Though I teach students as if they might compete, enrichment is one of my primary goals. Dogs that are fearful, over-aroused or lacking focus improve through bringing out their primitive drives. Students not interested in trialing benefit from my instincts and ability to connect and ‘read’ dogs.  

Knowing how much information to communicate to the handler so they can take it in and learn from it, is one of my skills.   

I have a knack for intuitive reading of people and dogs ie: – instincts on what the dog and handler need to improve their partnership. 

Working on foundations and returning to foundations no matter the level is done through exercises and games. This enhances relationships and improves trialing success.  

Drills, games and lessons are well planned and goal oriented. For newer students, specific benchmarks are met while on primary (searching for a toy or food) before moving to odour. This builds a ‘search dog’ rather than an ‘odour targeting dog.’ 

Through lessons from trainers plus webinars and seminars, I am constantly learning. I don’t believe I’ve ‘arrived’ but can always ‘level up’ and improve, both as a competitor and as an instructor. 

I have students who are successful at the highest levels of competition as well as students seeing their dogs thrive and make huge gains in confidence and life skills through nose work. 

Problem solving for teams working through challenges is a special interest. I can meet people and dogs where they are, at that moment on that day and intuitively customize lessons to help.

Handling is a special interest of mine and these are some of what I offer:

-Reading what the dog needs in the moment and communicating to the handler the intricacies of support/giving autonomy. 

-Teaching the handlers to be aware of how their movements affect their dogs and what they should change. 

-Fine-tuning this through different drills and games. 

-Working through handler nerves .

I’ve used games for years in all my levels – from Intro to my most advanced  classes. It adds spice and a competitive spark to nose work and is a great way  to practise for competition. Games give the teams who enjoy nose work  strictly for enrichment, new challenges and camaraderie with classmates.  Each game tests for specific skills – many of which are the building blocks for  excelling in the sport. My mock trial challenge days always involve a game. I’m  always adding new ones to my repertoire!