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Something Magical In our ongoing series of PPG member profiles, this month BARKS features Michelle Martiya of Essential Animal Training in Boca Raton, Florida
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ichelle Martiya was a dog groomer for over 20 years but had started to feel burnout and the need to branch out into another area.
Q: Can you tell us a bit more about yourself, how you first got into animal behavior and training and what you are doing now? A: I felt like I needed something new to breathe life back into my ca reer so I decided to take a dog training course and was totally hooked! I became obsessed with learning about animal behavior and training. I started training dogs and horses for the first few years and later added exotic pets. These days I offer virtual coaching services to help people train their dogs, equids, and exotic pets via positive reinforce ment. I specialize in helping people bond with fearful and unap proachable animals. Q: Tell us a little bit about your own pets. A: I own a Manchester terrier, a Pomeranian/Chihuahua mix, two Bengal cats, and one domestic longhaired cat. All of them are clicker trained to varying degrees. I also own a 24yearold American mus tang, named Robin Hood, who came to me through a rescue that had deemed him "untrainable." He has proved to be very trainable with positive reinforcement though. Q: Why did you become a dog trainer or pet care provider? A: I became an animal trainer because I was passionate about under standing animal behavior and wanted to help people connect with their pets on a deeper level. Q: What is your favorite part of your job? A: Those lightbulb moments in both animal and human are my favorites parts, plus seeing the connection those moments form between them. Q: What do you consider to be your area of expertise? A: I feel I excel most working with animals, or coaching people in work ing with animals, that are fearful and unapproachable. My forte is help ing people create trust and build relationships with animals that are feral or wild.
© Michelle Martiya
Michelle Martiya favors the TreatRetreat technique to build trust with the animals she trains, from dogs to foxes and horses to zebras
Q: Are you a crossover trainer or have you always been a force‐free trainer? A: Luck was with me when I decided to take a dog training course. The course I selected was my first introduction to animal training and my mentor throughout the course was a positive reinforcement trainer. It all made perfect sense to me and I’ve never trained any other way. Q: What drives you to be a force‐free professional and why is it impor‐ tant to you? A: Since I was a child, I had always wanted to be able to communicate with animals. For a while I lost that and animals were just, well, animals. Learning about behavior and positive reinforcement opened lines of communication that I never knew could exist between myself and the animals I work with. I want other people to be able to experience the kind of relationship that only comes with being forcefree. Q: What are some of your favorite positive reinforcement techniques for the most commonly encountered client‐dog problems? A: TreatRetreat* is probably the one positive reinforcement technique that I use most. I’ve used variations of this technique to build trust with everything from dogs to foxes and horses to zebras. Q: What is the reward you get out of a day's training with people and their dogs?: A: There is something magical about seeing those "lightbulb" moments when the animal "gets" the behavior and the client has that “lightbulb”
BARKS from the Guild/September 2020
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