About Well Trained Dogs
Hi, I’m Vanessa and dogs and their behavior is my passion.
My love for dogs has become the best career I could have imagined.
I’ve been a dog lover from a very early age, and first became a dog walker at the age of 10 years old for neighbors in Lacombe; and my dream began.
Since then I have been drawn to all types of dogs. I’ve fostered countless dogs (so far only 2 “fails”, Scout and Dana), and have worked with animal rescues, shelters, kennels and pet stores. My love for this field only continues to grow.
I love dogs and want to give them the best life!
My Journey as a dog trainer
A number of years ago, we got a dog that turned out to be a reactive, insecure and a nervous pup. I was way out of my league when it came to training her and fulfilling her biological needs. I reached out to a trainer I had met through a rescue and signed up for a reactivity training program.
This was life-changing and I fell in love with the process of dog training and wanted to learn as much as I could, as fast as I could. I poured everything into training my dogs, my friends dogs, and all the fosters I could get my hands on. I spent lots of time at a shelter doing what I knew, to help make the dogs a little better behaved and therefore more adoptable.
In the fall of 2020, I enrolled in a shadow program with an amazing trainer (Erin at Chaos Canine Company). It was an incredible experience and I learned everything I could about all facets of dog training. That was an incredible start for me and I began teaching basic puppy training classes.
I continued with my intensive training at the Chaos Canine Company facility working with her and her client’s dogs. Advanced to training that was geared towards more advanced issues including resource guarding and reactivity. All of the organizations I’ve worked with have commented on my natural instincts and remarkable insight I have with dogs and their traits and challenges.
When the pandemic hit, puppies were in high demand. Everyone wanted a puppy, and many didn’t have the tools or knowledge needed to be a successful puppy parent. With this “trend” it was heartbreaking to see many newly adopted pets returned to rescues, re-homed and surrendered.
I was referred by rescue workers to new pet owners, to assist them with their new adventure, and helped to ensure that dogs and their owners were better equipped to happily live together and reduce the amount of dogs being surrendered back to the shelters.
My training and learning continues with each client. I take great pride in seeing the changes in both the dogs, and their owners ability to take the tools I teach them and have many successful well trained dogs now out and about in the community. Each new dog I meet and owners I work with, more is learned and shared and I’m still excited at each learning curve… that will never stop.
I am so excited to be on this journey and sincerely appreciate you joining me!
~Vanessa Zacharias
My dogs Scout and Dana.