The Trainers

Lori started training dogs in 4-H when she was about ten years old. Her parents wouldn’t let her have a dog, so she borrowed a neighbors’ dog. Soon she had several neighbors asking me to walk and train their dogs.

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After high school, she attended The Rochester Institute of Dog Grooming, setting her on a career path for the next 35 years. After graduating, she married and moved to Buffalo NY. She started her marriage with two dalmatians puppies, Bo and Dixie, and knew she wanted them to be well behaved dogs which led to her taking obedience classes with the late Tony VanUden. Tony introduced her to competitive obedience and she was hooked! She enjoyed the camaraderie amongst the students (many of them are still friends) with the added benefit of having a well trained dog! 

Roughly 20 years ago she went to a little seminar at a horse barn down the road from her all about agility. At the time, no one was teaching it and classes were impossible to get into. Fortunately, a friend of her's, Kim Hahn, was putting together classes at a local church. It was the beginning of another happy adventure for herself as well as her kids and their dogs.

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Over the years she's worked with many trainers for obedience, rally and agility and realized learning to communicate with another species fascinated her. She's enjoyed watching and being part of “The evolution of dog training” from when she started training dogs, from the early days of forcing a dog to do its owners bidding, to modern, gentler techniques of marking a behavior we want and rewarding that behavior. She looks forward to the future of dog training and all that it can lead to.

Jason has been an active competitor in agility for 10 years. He has had dogs all his life including Lab mixes, Cocker Spaniel, Border Collies, German Shepherd and a German Shepherd mix. Jason began training his first Border Collie Sierra in agility in 2010. Jason loves to encourage and help competitors in all levels and will stay and encourage the beginner's handlers and novice dogs. 

Jason and Sierra started competing in agility from 2011 till 2020 when she retired from agility. She has successfully competed in AKC, USDAA and UKI. Sierra qualified every year in USDAA and UKI, but we were only able to attend three USDAA Cynosports games. Jason and Sierra also trained for search and rescue and went out on many searches.

Jason has always said that Sierra taught him so much in the game of agility. Sierra was the perfect dog as his first agility partner. Sierra and I together have earned five championships overall and in AKC she earned her MACH, in USDAA she earned her ADCH, PDCH and her Lifetime Achievement Award and in UKI she earned her IAC 2 and IWAC titles.

Jason is starting to train and show his two year old Border Collie Savannah in UKI, CPE and AKC. Jason is also teaching his new one year old rescue Zeus, a German Shepherd mix, in agility foundations. Jason is an UKI agility judge and is working towards other judging opportunities in other venues. Jason decided to become a judge as a way to give back to the sport he loves. Jason loves all venues and breeds and loves watching them run the courses, yet his favorite has always been to watch the novice classes and beginner handlers to watch them grow as a team together.

Tamara is a former high school teacher. She has been training and competing in agility for 10 years, trialing in UKI, CPE, and NADAC. Her dogs, Riley and Salsa, are complete opposites, so Tamara is experienced with training and competing with dogs with both average and high drive. She loves to share her dog training knowledge to bring the best out of every dog and handler team.