If you don’t know me, welcome! My name is Ryan and I rehabilitate aggressive and reactive dogs out of my home. I’m a certified dog trainer & applied animal behaviorist. I completed a 1 year program for obedience, several mentorships, several shadow programs, attended quite a few seminars, and most recently I graduated a 3 semester certificate program for applied animal behavior at a university. I even went to vet assisting school and worked in a veterinary clinic for a year. My journey began when I was 8 years old and decided to become vegetarian, which actually got me grounded, but I didn’t give up. I knew harming animals wasn’t something I ever wanted to be a part of. I later became fully vegan at 14. I even remember in kindergarten I told the class I wanted to become a veterinarian to save animals. At 19 years old, I fostered a few dogs and cats and was really big into animal rights activism. I was a fundraising coordinator and eventually vice president of a an animal rights organization where I advocated for a vegan lifestyle through outreach events. After 2 years with this nonprofit, I decided to start my own nonprofit dog shelter. I was President and Executive Director for 7 years. I founded this nonprofit myself and built this organization into a dog shelter with 600 volunteeers that operated out of a 5,000 sq. ft. trucking warehouse we converted into a dog shelter, and we rescued 1,300 dogs during my time there! My dog shelter is still operating and is now rescuing over 500 dogs a year! After a few years working with dogs at my shelter, I founded a dog training business and operated both in the same building. The reason I began working with aggressive and reactive dogs is that I find something special about being able to help those that quite honestly, most others won’t. Aggressive dogs are more likely than not euthanized in the shelter system or they’re adopted out without equipping families to properly work with them. I wasn’t going to be just another shelter than euthanized dogs with behavior issues, so I put everything I had into learning how to help them! I moved to Florida about 4 years ago to focus solely on dog training and rehabilitation. Somewhere along the line my values no longer aligned with rescue work. It was mainly the fact that while we were rescuing 30-40 dogs in a single weekend, we weren’t quite able to set up each family to be as successful as I knew I could. I find that working with families on a much more personal level made for a more successful situation for everyone involved. One-on-one work allows for families and dogs to have a much more intentional, fulfilling relationship rather than focusing solely on the number of dogs we could save. If you need help with your dog, I operate out of St. Petersburg Florida, where I offer private lessons, day trains, boot camps, and shadow programs! I also offer virtual lessons if you’re not in the area, however half of my clients travel from all over the US for my 2-6 week boot camp programs! Visit BalancedCanineAcademy.com for more info on my programs. After reading through my website, if you’re interested in working with me, submit a contact form and I’ll give you a call for a consultation! #DogTraining #dog #tampa #tampabay #florida - @balancedcanineacademy