Kayleigh started her training journey teaching swimming, triathlon, and lifeguarding courses to students of all ages and backgrounds. However, when she adopted her first dog, Casey Jones, an incredibly fearful dog; his fears and uncertainties lead her down a new and exciting training path. She has since adopted another dog, Kobe, with his own set of strengths as well as a new set of challenges to work through and learn from. Kayleigh has developed the entire Target Ready Program for K9 Leadership. Her focus starts with creating a solid foundation built on trust, focus, and engagement, incorporating activities that are both fun and functional to keep both the handlers and the dogs wanting to continue. Having worked with her own fearful and reactive dogs, she understands the importance of working within the dog’s threshold and that slowly building upon skills to reduce frustration while building positive associations is the key behind any successful training.
Kayleigh completed her apprenticeship with K9 Leadership, and is regarded as a talented and creative trainer with a keen understanding of how dogs learn. She has attended and completed all of the obedience and boot camp classes and is often seen assisting. Having also completed all of the tracking courses, is currently working towards titling Casey Jones. She also dabbles in agility, trick dog training, scent detection, weight pull, and dock diving with her dogs and is planning to add rally-o and extensive area search to their growing list of activities. Kayleigh is excited by learning from others and enjoys continuing her education and increasing her knowledge through seminars and workshops. Currently, she has participated in the Debbie Jones Fearful Dog seminar, Clicker Expo 2020, and the 2020 online Fenzi dog sports/IAABC lemonade conference, to name a few. In October 2020 she will be participating in the online Aggression in Dogs Conference, and in the summer of 2021, she is also excited to participate in a working spot with Jay Jack, to learn more about play and social responsibility.