Kicking Off The Pet Training Science Alliance with Jean Donaldson

Kicking Off

The Pet Training Science Alliance

with Jean Donaldson from The Academy For Dog Trainers

We will be chatting to Jean on Zoom and broadcasting it to the PPG Facebook Page. As a PPG member you can register here and jump on Zoom with us. If you are not a PPG member then please visit the PPG Facebook Page at the time indicated to watch the live stream and interact with us. 

About THe Pet Training Science Alliance

Help PPG Support Science to Advance the Dog Training Industry!

We are delighted to announce that the Pet Professional Guild (PPG) is supporting an ambitious research project by Dr. Jamie Deleeuw of Community Research+.

Despite the public's increasing demand for dog training, there remains a notable lack of research dedicated to the professional pet dog training community. The studies included in this breakthrough project will provide an in-depth investigation into why dog trainers use specific training techniques and the prevalence and predictors of change in training method usage over time. The findings will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal and be shared with the key stakeholders, which could include you!

To fund this important research, industry experts have generously volunteered their time and expertise to give a special series of educational webinars for PPG through its new program, the Pet Training Science Alliance (PTSA), which supports and helps fund scientific research to advance the pet training industry.

With Guest Jean Donaldson

Jean is the founder and principal instructor of The Academy for Dog Trainers, a two-year comprehensive professional program in evidence-based pet dog training, behavior, class teaching and behavior counseling. The Academy celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019 and has certified over one thousand behavior counselors and trainers.

She is a four-time winner of The Dog Writers' Association of America's Maxwell Award, and her books include The Culture Clash, Dogs are from Neptune, Fight! A Practical Guide to Dog-Dog Aggression, and Train Your Dog Like a Pro. In 2017, Jean was recruited to create and teach Dog Training 101 for The Great Courses, a 24-part series on dog training and behavior.

Her own dogs and dogs she has trained have earned numerous titles and wins in a variety of dog sports, including OTCh, TDX, HIT and FDCh. Before founding The Academy, Jean did exclusively referral aggression cases for six years.

A native of Montreal, Canada, she lives in California, with her dog, Brian, adopted in 2015. Her interests include evolutionary biology, baseball analytics, baking, helping Chow Chows, the history of the British monarchy, and music.

Preseners Business 

The Academy for Dog Trainers is a two-year comprehensive professional program in evidence-based pet dog training, behavior, class teaching and behavior counseling.  The Academy will celebrate its 25-year anniversary in 2024, and has certified over one thousand behavior counselors and trainers.  After running it for 10 years out of The San Francisco SPCA as an in-person full-time program, Jean re-invented the program as a self-paced part-time online course in 2011.