Meet the Trainer
My name is Johanna Anderson, Training Lead for Space Cadet Dog Training. My experience with animals goes back to my earliest memories with family pets, our 3 dogs and 2 cats. I remember watching cute videos on DVD and excitedly devouring the extra content that surprisingly had tips on the very basics of how to teach your dog to sit. I had our pups in line sitting in no time and the pure joy spurred me to learn more. Over the years I continued to have dogs in my life, though in high school I also found myself caring for goats and chickens in our large backyard, administering their daily care and medical care on top of the husbandry tasks to keep our dogs in fine fettle.
Fast forward 3 years and I can be seen in my first professional dog training job. Petco took me in and trained me in full Positive Reinforcement methods for teaching basic obedience, advanced obedience, and behavior modifications, all while apprenticing under the Head Trainer in the region. She had run her own training business in the past and studied under many of the top trainers over the years herself, providing a knowledgeable launching point for my continued education to come.
When my time at Petco came to an end, I continued to train pups for my prior clients, building the foundations of how my training and pet care business would be run today. I also took on a long term employment opportunity at a dog daycare to learn the nuance of group play dynamics and served as a kennel technician for a guide dog training facility to see yet another dog training style.
Dog training for me is more than a business. It is a focused expression of my love of animals and my desires to see them treated with the same respect we would afford any human. This also means holding them to certain standards so they may contribute to the peace of our communities. I continue to push my methods, learn new fields, and refine my techniques daily as new research is always being published. Dog health and psychology is an ever evolving subject and how best to keep our furry friends happy and healthy is a topic I take seriously. As a trainer, I take pride in being able to learn these techniques and research points as they come to light, distilling them into a form that is easy for even a first time dog owner to understand for themselves. This is all to build a strong bond with their four-legged companion, new or old!
See the Methods
Through my dog training journey I have learned a great many things in terms of techniques, mindsets, and methods. My personal style, shown in everything Space Cadet Dog Training endorses, is that which is promoted by the CCPDT – the national standard of excellence for dog trainers. That method is combined in two ethical practices.
LIMA – Least Intrusive Minimally Aversive
LIMA principals state that a dog should always have a level of choice in their actions. If we are intruding upon their right to choose, they aren’t learning. They are acting out of compulsion or fear. As such, a LIMA methods dog trainer gives as many situations for a dog to make good choices as possible. Aversive tools for corrective communication may be used, but only if needed and only the minimum needed to communicate effectively with the dog in question. Anything a dog does not like is classified as an aversive, even a squirt bottle, no matter what some trainers may say!
Humane Hierarchy – The Highway to Health
Humane Hierarchy is a branching pathway best expressed as a highway or freeway. You are in the training and experimenting phase for so long as you are on the freeway and each exit you take is a different method. One does not simply skip from exit 1 to exit 4! You take an exit, explore the surface streets in that area, and get back on the freeway if that ‘neighborhood’ of training methods doesn’t meet your dog’s needs. Each exit is taken in order to ensure that a dog’s needs are met with the minimum of aversive methods being enforced, an idea that is reinforced by the LIMA method.
Space Cadet Dog Training 