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For as long as Kris
can remember, she has spent her entire life with animals. Growing up with
as many as 20 dogs at a time, as well as cats, rabbits, rodents, birds and
even a monkey, Kris's love for animals has grown into a life long
passion. Today, Kris currently shares her
home with 9 dogs: 4 rescue Keeshonden ( 17 year old keeshond passed away
3.22.09) 2 Border Collies, a rescue
Pomeranian, an Alaskan Malamute a rescue 3 legged American Eskimo
(passed away 3.22.09)
and two Hungarian Mudik. Kris also shares her home with her
Mom and Dad's tiny Pomeranian named Melba and their Border Collie Flame
which is trains and handles in agility.
Kris has loads of experience raising puppies since her parents were German
Shepherd Dog Breeders as well as
working with rescue dogs and dogs with abused backgrounds.
Kris also works with Keeshond and American Eskimo Rescue retraining dogs
for their future homes. Kris specializes in severely abused dogs
and aggression cases and has been able to rehabilitate dogs that
were hours away from euthanasia. With her foster dogs, Kris is
able to solve behavioral
issues that made these dogs unadoptable and were surrendered by their
owners.
Always informally
training animals as a kid, Kris seriously began training dogs 18 years
ago, starting with competitive obedience and conformation. After 8 years of successfully
showing her keeshond, Randall and her Pomeranian Rushka, in competitive
obedience, Kris's interest turned to the
Performance sport of Dog Agility and herding.
For the last 12
years, Kris has trained and competed in the Performance Sport of Dog
Agility. Kris is a National and International Level competitor and has appeared in the
final events of the 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 World Games with her Border
Collie Lochlan. Lochlan, at age 9, made the Steeplechase Finals at
the 2009 World Games in the 26" Division which is unheard of at this age. War at age 5 made the 2009 Team Finals
and his team placed 8th overall out of over 200 teams. War, Flame
and Lochlan consistently post some of the fastest times of all 26"
jumping dogs at major events.
Working with her rescue
dogs, Kris
builds confidence and motivation through relationship. Kris sees each dog
as an individual and therefore applies different training techniques for
all dogs especially for dogs that are fearful, have been abused or have
severe aggression issues.
These
dogs need special attention and during their training sessions sometimes
the tiniest improvements are the most important. With innovative ideas
and play based training sessions, dogs with behavioral issues can learn to love the sport
of agility.
Kris trains over 150 students weekly in the NY and NYC area and helps her students develop
great relationships with their dogs. One of Kris's main goals is to
inspire her students to love working with their dogs and to develop the
confidence in their own training to not only build stronger bonds, but
enable them to reach their individual goals within the sport.
Kris clicker trains all foundation behaviors by free shaping and helps
her students use these positive reinforcement based methods. Clicker
training builds confidence and confident dogs perform without
hesitation. In any agility partnership between dog and handler, Kris
stresses trust in each other which evolves into dynamic, fast agility
teams.
Kris has 10 Medals
from the World Games and 18 Agility Championships on a variety of dogs.
Lochlan was awarded a Life Time Achievement Award at the 2009 World
Games and has been listed as USDAA's top 10 Agility Dog in Tournaments
for the last 3 years. War has made USDAA's Top 10 Agility Dog list
in the World in Tournaments and Standard for 2007 and 2008 in the 26"
Division
KRIS & LOCHLAN - NOV 2007 - GRAND PRIX FINAL
WORLD CYNOSPORT GAMES, SCOTTSDALE, AZ
AT RIGHT
Currently, Kris has
6 dogs competing in agility. All
are at different levels and require different techniques in order to get
the best possible performance from them. She is showing 2 Rescue
Keeshonden, Nadja and Hermione, both have had rough starts in life and are
extremely noise sensitive, 2
Border Collies, Lochlan and his half brother War, 2 Pomeranians, one is a
rescue named Rushka who is fearful of everything and one is her parents
Pomeranian named Melba who is known throughout the East Coast as one of
the smallest agility competitors. Melba even has her own fan club.

Kris has
appeared in several dog related Magazines with her dogs and has written
various articles on training based themes. Kris's dogs have also
been featured on television and movie promotion work.
Kris
has been serving as the Agility Training Director for Port Chester
Obedience Club for the last 8 years. Her program offers all levels
of agility training from Beginner foundation to the Master's level.
Kris has 5 instructor's working under her program, one of which is her
sister, Kim, who is an accomplished instructor/handler in her own right.
KRIS & WAR - NOV. 2007 -
STEEPLECHASE SEMI-FINALS- WORLD CYNOSPORT GAMES SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA)
AT LEFT
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