My name is Yolande Harrison and I am an agility trainer at the dog club. I own a beautiful 8 month old Belgian Shepherd Tervuren puppy named Zoe. My occupation is a dog walker and dog washer. I live with my parents Peter and Maureen and 3 sisters Sheralyn, Melanie and Bronwyn. Our 4 dogs and 3 cats are the furry members of our household and they are: Zoe who is my Belgian Shepherd puppy; Sheralyn who owns Skye, a 1 year old pavement special; Melanie who owns Max, a 7 month old border collie and Bronwyn who owns Copper, a 10 year old Belgian shepherd tervuren. Our cats are 3 SPCA specials named Mowgli, Baloo and Koda.
I have been a trainer at the club for 8 years this year. I have enjoyed every minute of it and love my agility classes I teach and my handlers. Each one is special in their own way and have the greatest potential. I look forward to training every week to teach setup sequences and see what punishment I can put on them, (only joking)I really enjoy setting up sequences so they can learn and start competing soon. I have previously trained one dog before Zoe. Her name was Sandy and she was my soul mate. She became a breed champion and she made it to Class C in obedience and Grade 3 non-contact agility in SADAA. She won loads of rosettes and 2 medals from the club and a silver medal at a regional trial at a SADAA show. She also won the Belgian Shepherd working dog trophy 5 times and 4 were consecutively in a row. She also appeared in the television series ” Geraldina die tweede” on Kyknet. I am currently entering the breed shows with my little Zoe and so far she has 2 X 1st place minor puppy wins and 1 Reserve best of breed and 1 Best minor puppy in the herding group and a 4th place in the herding group. She will be learning flyball and agility when she is old enough and will become an obedience champion, agility champion, a breed champion and a flyball champion. Just watch the press.
I believe dogs are there to give you unconditional love and undying devotion. They in turn need to be worked, trained and loved back. Puppies need to be socialised and treated like dogs but also need to respect us and us them. A well trained puppy is a happy puppy. The best advice I have ever received has been: Be calm and assertive, gain respect from your dog by training it well and make sure you have a 100% recall. My mentors have been Cesar Milan, Julie Tobiansky, Trish Gates and Suzy Baurrichter. My favourite training method is the clicker method. It is so much fun watching a dog learn the clicker and when they get the desired behaviour it is awesome. I used clicker with my old dog but am using it much more with Zoe and she has already learnt 4 tricks with the clicker. I am going to use the clicker in my agility and obedience training. I am reading an awesome book now called ” Shaping success” by Susan Garret. It is amazing.
