Good Neighbor Podcast: Davie
Good Neighbor Podcast: Davie
Good Neighbor Podcast: Davie
Eps #8 Beyond Commands: Building a Meaningful Connection with Your Canine Companion
What happens when dog training focuses on building relationships rather than just obedience? Mary Siero, founder of K9 Coaching Academy, reveals a fresh approach to helping everyday people with their household pets.
Mary's journey began when she noticed a crucial gap in dog training services. While most facilities focused on competition and performance dogs, many pet owners simply needed help integrating their furry friends into family life. This realization led Mary and her colleagues to establish K9 Coaching Academy, where the focus shifts from rigid obedience to nurturing the human-canine bond through understanding, patience, and tailored training techniques.
The conversation debunks common myths about dog training, particularly the notion that older dogs can't learn new behaviors. Mary shares a touching story about rescuing an eight-year-old dog who had spent his entire life chained outdoors, yet through thoughtful training became a well-adjusted companion. "Dogs live in the present," she explains, offering an insight that applies as much to human psychology as canine behavior. This present-focused approach allows rescued animals to move beyond difficult pasts when provided with consistent love and proper guidance.
Beyond their standard classes, K9 Coaching Academy gives back through extensive community outreach, working with animal shelters to train volunteers and help special needs dogs, including deaf and blind rescues. They've created programs like "Canine Waggers" where therapy dogs visit nursing homes and businesses, and a performance team that entertains at community events. Their commitment extends to education programs in schools, teaching children about responsible pet ownership.
Want to transform your relationship with your dog? Visit K9coachingacademy.com or call 336-925-8817 to discover how understanding your pet's unique needs can create harmony at home. Whether you're adopting a rescue or bringing home a new puppy, proper training makes all the difference in building a lasting bond with your four-legged family member.
Mary Siero
8151 North Point Blvd Winston-Salem, NC 27105
336-925-8817
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Karen Wood.
Speaker 2:Well, hello. This is Karen Wood with the Good Neighbor Podcast of Davey and Advanced Neighbors. I am excited here today because I have my friend Mary Sierra, with Canine Coaching Academy, talking all things dogs and training. How are you, mary?
Speaker 3:I'm great, thank you. How are you, karen?
Speaker 2:I am doing very well. I am super excited to talk with you and learn a bit more about your business and how it came to be. So tell us how Canine Coaching Academy was born.
Speaker 3:Well, it started out. A group of us were training at another facility and our focus is more on, you know, people's pets and the relationship with their dogs and their house, not on competitive performance or purebred dogs. And the place we were at was focused more on performance dogs and purebreds and we wanted to help just the average person with their dog. So we felt the best way to do that was to open our own place. We were lucky enough to find a facility that was affordable for us and we opened last September and we're very excited about it.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So you'll be celebrating one year here in a couple of months.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Great, and I love the idea that you are focused on just your household pet, like you said, not that performance dog or the purebred, so I love that aspect of it for sure.
Speaker 3:Well, and it's not that we don't like purebreds. It's just that you know, if your purebred dog is going to be your household pet, then this is the place for you to come to, because our classes focus not just on improving your dog's manners and behaviors. We also work on your relationship with your dog and help you and your dog learn how to have fun in new ways together, in ways that are enriching for your dog, so that your dog is actually a better family member.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm a huge dog fan. I have three myself. I think when we first met, we talked about mine, and some of them are purebred, if you will, but then others are a mix, and I have owned multiple dogs throughout my lifetime and have adopted several as well. So that's, that's awesome. So you guys worked with another company or another business and then just came together and formed Canine Coaching Academy to serve the needs more of that pet and helping them adapt better in their home and be better listeners, almost, if you will. There's a lot to learn from the dogs, the dogs the humans and humans the dogs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there absolutely is, and you know people. I think people's relationship with dogs have changed over the years, and we we work to better understand our dogs so that they're happier and healthier as well, and it just makes for a great combination if your dog is well behaved.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. And don't you guys specialize, like, for example? We talked about, for example, puppy puppies, getting them off to the right start at a very young age?
Speaker 3:Yes, we have a great puppy program that really looks at the developmental stages of the puppy. So our puppy program is not just about obedience training although there's some of that in there but just as children have developmental stages where they go through fear periods, puppies have those same kinds of stages, and so what we seek to do is help you bring your puppy upright, because if you start when a dog is a puppy, the behavior problems is that they get older. Is can be non-existent if you bring them up right, Gotcha.
Speaker 2:And is it a myth that you can't teach an old dog new tricks?
Speaker 3:Absolutely is a myth. I had a dog I rescued from that had lived on a chain for eight years and he was my buddy.
Speaker 3:He was the best dog in the world and he learned all kinds of tricks and was just a great citizen. So it might take a little bit more time sometimes to train them, depending on that dog, because just as some people are good learners, some dogs are good learners as well, and if a dog has never had to learn anything their whole life, they have to kind of get the learning process started when they're older, like that.
Speaker 2:And that makes sense. They got to exercise that learning muscle. Yep, their brain. I love it. And you know, do you find too that some of the dogs, like the one you experienced that was on the chain for eight years, or just some that are, you know, fostered and then adopted, that that they have just like a, a sense of? I don't know if grateful is the right word, but it's like they sense they're like I'm in a better place.
Speaker 3:Well, the great thing about dogs is they live in the present and they are very grateful for the present that they're in. So people are often worried about a dog that has maybe had an abusive past and that the dog won't be able to get past it. But they really can because they do live in the present. So once they live in the right environment, they are grateful for better understanding and for, you know, love and companionship.
Speaker 2:Wow, isn't that a great lesson we should take ourselves. We should For sure. Take ourselves, we should For sure. So what is the one thing that you really want our listeners to know about you and your business as it pertains to the dog training world?
Speaker 3:I think the one thing that we'd like people to know is that we're really focused on individuals. Even though we have group classes, we typically have two instructors for every class so that we give a lot of individual attention to our students. We're always available to our students via text or email, you know, after class, even months later, because we're really focused on you and your dog and we want things to go well for you and your dog, so we want to be there for you when you need us. We also have, you know, a wide range of classes. You know if you've had a dog that is well behaved, we have a class that's called Dogs Just Want to have Fun, where we play different games with your dogs. We did a Olympic decathlon in that class just a few weeks ago and everybody just loved it. So your fun with your dog doesn't have to stop after they learn the basics of sit down and stay. There's more there that you can do with them Got it.
Speaker 2:How many people do you have on staff working with you? We?
Speaker 3:have four trainers that work and we have some other assistants that work, and none of us are full time. We all work part time for the classes that we're working with.
Speaker 2:OK, so you've got a wide range then of experience and dealing with different behaviors and ages and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:We do, and all of our trainers have a certain specialty. We have some that focused on competitive dog sports Myself, I focus on canine fitness and tricks. My partner, stephanie, focuses on puppies she loves puppies. And our fourth trainer focuses on some other competitive sports like obedience and rally.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. Now tell me where your facility is located.
Speaker 3:We are located at 8151 North Point Boulevard in Winston-Salem, ok, which is not a far drive for us here where we are in Davie County, which is not a far drive for us here.
Speaker 2:where we are in Davie County, it's literally depending on traffic. You can get there 15, 20 minutes easily. Yes, absolutely. Very easy to find. Got it, got it. And do you have a website that our listeners could go?
Speaker 3:to. We do we also. Our website is caninecacom or caninecoachingacademycom. We also have a Facebook page, canine Coaching Academy, and we are on Instagram as well.
Speaker 2:Okay, awesome, and do you, on those platforms, do you provide tips and various things like that that people can follow you for just you know, little bits of tidbits of information.
Speaker 3:We do. We're trying to get better with that we have a lot of tips on the website and on the Facebook page is where we offer most of the tips. We'll share things maybe from other sites about canine nutrition you know more authoritative sites and we'll also offer some tips of our own on that site as well sites and we'll also offer some tips of our own on that site as well.
Speaker 2:Awesome, I know you guys do a lot to give back, not just for your clients that come and pay. Just recently, I think, we were fortunate to have our Humane Society come to you and get some classes and lessons with a handful of our volunteers and some of our dogs that are currently up for adoption, on just some basics and learning how to handle them and deal with different behavioral issues from anxiety or even newer puppies and et cetera.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It was a wonderful afternoon. We had, I think, four deaf dogs in that group.
Speaker 3:I think they, foster, knew of one of them that were was deaf, but as we started working with them we felt that the other two were deaf as well. One of them was deaf and blind, and so we helped that foster with. You know how to how to train a deaf and blind dog. I personally have a deaf dog, so I have some experience there, and we had some other dogs that were a little bit anxious so we had another trainer working with them, so it was just a wonderful experience.
Speaker 3:We also have a Davie County animal services scheduled to come in in a week or so for some of their volunteers, and again, we're doing it just to help. We feel that if fosters and volunteers are better at their jobs, we're going to see more dogs get adopted and stay in their adoptive homes and not be returned to shelters, and that's something that we think is pretty important to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's awesome too because, as you'd said, just with the dogs helping to lower their anxiety and just some basics on some training and things that they have, so that when I go to that new home it does, I would think, make it a lot easier on that transition.
Speaker 3:Yep, absolutely, and we did a similar thing for FOSS Friends of Stokes County Shelter about a year ago when we first opened. So we're always open to do that for organizations we like to sponsor, any of the animal welfare type organizations. You know we usually donate a free training class as part of a raffle basket. We're doing it for the Humane Solution, their upcoming event, and we did it last year, for I forget the name of the group we did it for last year. So we're always willing to do that though.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, I've been to your facility and I think it's a very unique place and what you guys are offering I think is wonderful and specializing, like I said in the the, the, the pet, that for the home, for that new family that adopts that new pet or acquires the new puppy. So I think there's definitely a need for that, because most of the trainings facilities that I've seen, or whatever it's like you said, it's more for that the agility, all those things that you see out there, and especially if you see TV and you know stuff like that, so you're the first that I've seen that caters to this. Yeah, and we and you know stuff like that, so you're the first that I've seen that caters to this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we, you know, we offer some introductory classes to things like agility, but that's not our, our main focus and that's not where our strengths are. I should also mention that we have a couple of other groups that go out and give back to the community. We have a group called Canine Waggers, which is is a group of therapy dogs and our Canine Waggers just go places and get petted by people, basically, and help lower their blood pressure. So they go to nursing homes or hospitals or even businesses. Liberty Hardware asked us to come out on an employee health day and we took all our dogs and everyone just came and petted the dogs and loved it. We also have another team called the Canine Performance Team and that's a team that does a routine and performs tricks and we do a lot of groups there. We've done rehabilitation centers and nursing homes. We're doing some fall festivals this fall and again, we just do it just to you know, help people enjoy dogs.
Speaker 2:That is awesome. So what fall festivals can people find you at this this year?
Speaker 3:We are going to be at the Bethesda Church Fall Festival on September 27th. Okay, that's down in Welcome. We're going to be at the Welcome Fall Festival right next to North Davidson Veterinary Hospital and that's, I think, october 18th. I think I want to say, okay, there's a rehabilitation facility that's having a fall festival. We'll be at, but I think that's private. But those other two are the public ones that we're scheduled for right at the moment.
Speaker 2:Okay, I love the idea of the group, the canine performance team. That's really fun. I would think that would lift a lot of people's spirits, especially in nursing homes and just places like that for people just to see that. So that's really cool.
Speaker 3:It is. Some of them have asked us if we could come back weekly.
Speaker 2:We can't do that, we can't do that. Maybe quarterly, maybe monthly.
Speaker 3:We've got actually a lot of requests and we're pretty pleased about that because you know that's what we want to do with our dogs is we want to give back and, you know, help make people happy. Oh, we also have a few dogs that are canine ambassadors that go to schools people happy. Oh, we also have a few dogs that are canine ambassadors that go to schools. We just recently were at a school, you know, teaching children about responsible dog ownership and the different breeds and things Very cool.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. Well, you guys are. You're doing a lot out there and giving back to the community, so I certainly appreciate it and I have enjoyed learning a little bit more even than what I knew before, about what you, what you guys do. And again, so it's the canine canine academy and you can go to canine CA as well as canineCoachingAcademycom.
Speaker 3:Right, that's correct, and it's with a K, not the word canine spelled out, gotcha.
Speaker 2:The letter K, the letter K. And then you are located off North Point in Winston-Salem, and is there a phone number that if someone wanted to call you they could reach out? Sure, they could reach us at 336-925-8817.
Speaker 2:Great. Well, I have enjoyed it and I will post this contact information for folks and I hope you'll reach out to her if you get a new puppy. We have the holidays just around the corner and we know how that goes, so please, if you do, reach out to these ladies and get your puppy off to a right start and if you adopt, by all means reach out to these ladies and get your puppy off to a right start. And if you adopt, by all means reach out to them, and I look forward to having you back in the future and we'll get some progression updates on what you guys have going on and all of that good stuff. So I appreciate it, mary, and we definitely be back in touch to have another conversation. Great Thanks, karen, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpdaveycom. That's gnpdaveycom, or call 336-559-3044.