About the Trainers

In 2021, Brooke was voted one of the Best Dog Trainers in the State of Maine by Downeast Dog Magazine!

With a career as a child behavior specialist and assistant dog trainer in her free time, Brooke dove into dog training full time two years later in 2015, where she was hired at Blue Dog Daycare to develop a Day School program for dogs. The program focused on training the dogs while the owners went to work and then sending homework for the owners to continue the training at home. The program was a success! A year later, she became a Canine Good Citizen Evaluator with the AKC and earned her certification through the nationally recognized Council for Professional Dog Trainers as a Certified Pet Dog Trainer, or CPDT-KA. Brooke is also a member of The Alliance of Therapy Dogs and is part of a working team with her therapy dog partner, Barney.
 

In 2017 she went to CA to apprentice under David Baron of Superdog Training and learned methods to better help dogs and their owners achieve off-leash results without relying solely on treats, clickers or e-collars. She is an advocate for training dogs with as little tools as possible, as she believes training to be relationship-based. 

She has since attended seminars with Nicky Butler, a former working service dog trainer from the UK and Chris Fraize, a dog behaviorist with over 20 years of experience training police K-9’s. Through their teachings she is better able to read dogs and understand the functionality of behaviors. 

In 2019, Brooke began working with Maryland-based trainer's, Lionheart K9 and Show Me Your Dog Training, to advance toward competing in AKC events. Brooke utilizes the method's she's learned in  her training programs and continues to educate owners on the value of obedience in every day life. 

Katie joined Blue Dog Daycare as a daycare attendant in March 2021. That November, the head trainer, Brooke, saw the work she was doing with the daycare dogs and how well they responded to her and offered her the job of becoming Assistant Trainer. Katie jumped at the opportunity and shortly thereafter adopted a 1 year old rescue dog named Holly. She immediately entered Holly in an AKC Novice course to get her dog’s training underway. Coaching her through the course were longtime AKC competitors and head trainers/owners of Lionheart K9 and Show Me Your Dog Training from Maryland. Katie graduated the course in July 2022 and enrolled Holly to compete in the ring for her Beginner Novice title in October 2022. Taking second and third place on her first two legs, Holly just has one more leg to go before earning her title! In just under a year, Katie has trained her new, young (once very fearful) dog to be confident, reliable with commands and off-leash obedient!

Katie is certified as an AKC evaluator for S.T.A.R. puppy classes, Canine Good Citizen, and Community Canine tests. She has assisted Brooke in handling a few hundred dogs of all ages, sizes, breeds, and temperaments since taking on the role of Assistant Trainer in 2021. She has also helped to revamp the Puppy Preschool program to become more compatible with the S.T.A.R puppy tests! She has become invaluable to Brooke and to Blue Dog for her handling skills, enthusiastic approach to training and for her love of grooming. Many dogs have benefited from working with Katie and yours will too!

" Our dog, Sansa, is a three year old malti-poo. She has been training  with Katie for several months now, and she throughly enjoys the  training. She is very excited to get to Blue Dog-she knows the way, and  the excitement starts before we even pull in. Sansa (and I) have learned  a lot, and we are almost done with the program. It has been very easy  to follow the program, with a summary email after each lesson, and  homework (with demonstration videos) to do before the next class. It has  been very effective for us, as Sansa is a dog not motivated by  treats-so training her prior to day school had been difficult. I would  highly recommend Katie and Brooke, and the Day School Training  Program to anyone who has a dog". 

 -Kate Cost 

 "Our puppy, Archie, started at Blue Dog Day School at 8 weeks and is now  6 months old.  Katie has been working with him from the start.  We are  so grateful for her help and knowledge in training our pup!  We have had  several furry family members through the years but none are as  well-behaved as Archie and I attribute it to Katie's hard work and  consistency with him.  I also appreciate the communication and follow-up  lessons from Katie.  They are easy to follow and allow us to be on the  same page with training." 
-Erin Dimbleby

"Katie was very positive, supportive and helpful about training  Fergus.  He is a Border Terrier age 2 at the start of his training -  loaded with energy and excited beyond control with every new experience.  The obedience training provided a series of progressive training class  experiences that clicked for Fergus. My son and I worked hard doing the  homework to move him to pass to the next training class with Katie.

Katie  showed us a way to train him - he became trainable. The dog believes  when the training collar goes on, that he is ‘working’ and is proud of  giving the responses to the commands that he learned from Katie.  We are  still working on his excitability - but with Katie, we will get there."  

-Eileen W. Harvard