Michelle's Bio Michelle Blount has been a professional dog trainer for over 15 years; however, her love and interest in dog behavior can be tracked back much further. She was always involved with animals but her serious behavior interest started at age 13 when she volunteered at an animal shelter. That experience taught her that most dogs are turned into animal shelters, and ultimately euthanized, due to behavior problems. So Michelle decided to dedicate her life to dog behavior in order to give these wonderful dogs a second chance. She continues to support rescue efforts on a consistent basis. Over the last 15 years there have been great advances in our understanding of canine behavior and training; Michelle had kept up with such advances through seminars, video, dog training literature, and discussions with other trainers. She is heavily influenced by Patricia McConnell, Gary Wilkes, Sheila Booth, William Campbell, and a variety of excellent trainers she has met over the years. She is also influenced by her more recent work with horses and natural horsemanship. Her application of the same basics of leadership combined with motivational teaching works as well for horses as it does for dogs. She now considers her program a sort of natural dogmanship method. She believes the key to a good trainer is not focused on how they correct but in how they teach. Leadership, motivation, firmness, fairness, kindness and consistency produce a happy, well adjusted animal that is eager to work. Michelle owns Belgian Tervuren and her husband, Randy, has a German Shepherd rescue. They also have 3 horses. She has successfully shown in conformation and obedience trials as well as having a cert working SAR dog(currently retired). She also trains in schutzhund, agility and herding and has trained many service dogs. To see her dogs and their accomplishments visit CedarCrest Belgian Tervuren She traveled the country from 2007 to 2010 due to her husbands job, working on her book, occasionally setting up seminars, training her horses and dogs, doing a lot of horse camping trips to trail ride and also showing her dogs when she gets a chance. After several years of searching for a farm in TN they found the right place in Jellico, TN. Now settled in and serving the northern TN and southeastern Ky area. |
My Philosophy I believe the emphasis in training for the handler should be on educating them on canine behavior, as without a solid understanding of how dogs think(and how they don't think) how do we expect to teach them anything??? Most behavioral problems develop simply because the owner doesn't understand dog behavior and therefore is incapable of setting proper leadership within the pack. I believe the emphasis on dog training is teaching a behavior in a positive way and balancing that with proper structure and limits. Motivation is the key to getting a dog to learn. Structure and leadership are the keys to getting a dog to perform consistantly. I find once you get basic structure and you teach effectively, then you don't have to correct frequently. The combonation of teaching the human dog behavior and training the dog through a combonation of limits and motivation are why I named my company PAWSitive Dog/Human Training. PAWSitive meaning motivational teaching along with structure that dogs naturally understand and need. I have recently been influenced by my horse training im persuing. I looked at all the natural horsemanship methods which focus on leadership and trying to teach things in a natural way. I combine that same concept with a more motivational teaching approach and consider my program a natural dogmanship method. My goal is to create trustworthy and responsive companions for the entire family! I'm looking to produce dogs who can perform in real life situations and are pleasant additions to the family. |
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Michelle's Bio and teaching philosophy
"80% of class is teaching the owners and 20% is teaching the dog"
