Nicole Stewart: Dog on Everything!
Nicole Stewart talks about the winding path that led her from being an actress in LA to becoming the national Director of Training and Behavior at Paradise 4 Paws. She also talks about how she manages her work-life-family balance and leverages her creative side by developing innovative programs that foster the human-animal bond and blogging about human and canine behavior in her very funny blog, Dog on Everything.
BIO:
Nicole strongly believes that dog training is as much about the people as it is about the dogs. That’s not just because they are the ones paying the bill, but her experience has shown that people truly want to know how to understand and communicate with their dog effectively.
Her first introduction to training came after an inspiring meeting with Paul Owens, co-author of “The ‘Original’ Dog Whisperer“. Paul introduced her to his non-violent dog training approach and Nicole was hooked. She then studied for a year with him, got an apprenticeship, and finally taught for Paul over the course of three years in Los Angeles. Nicole furthered her education by attending various conferences throughout the country, which she continues to do today. Her love of family and the Midwest finally lured her back home in 2003.
After running and operating her own dog training business for 8 years on the North Shore of Chicago, she accepted a position with AnimalSense Canine Training and Behavior as Director of Training. This challenge not only allowed her to continue providing superior customer service to her private clients and group classes, it also gave her the opportunity to mentor new, up and coming trainers in the field.
Since the sale of AnimalSense, Nicole became the Director of Canine Training and Behavior at Paradise 4 Paws, where she gets to continue to work with pet parents and their dogs, but also create training curriculum for 4 locations, and educate playgroup managers about canine behavior.