Learning with Dogs

In preparation for establishing a research lab focused on multispecies relationships, I undertook extensive practice-based learning with dogs, families, and professional communities to better understand multispecies care as it unfolds in lived, everyday relationships.

This work involved learning with dogs, caregivers, and practitioners across diverse cultural and community contexts, and it continues to deeply inform my research on adult learning, ethics, care labour, and relational responsibility in family and community life.

Professional Learning and Credentials

I completed advanced professional training in canine behaviour and welfare, including dog training certification and an Advanced Diploma in Canine Behaviour through the International School for Canine Psychology and Behaviour (ISCP) under the tutelage of Dr. Teresa Tyler. I also completed the Family Paws Parent Education certification and specialized training in canine aggression, including the Aggression in Dogs Master Course with Michael Shikashio and the year-long Aggression for Dog Behaviour Professionals program with Dr. Amber Batson. I am the first licensed Dynamic Dog practitioner in Canada, trained in functional assessment approaches that attend to pain, discomfort, and emotional well-being as integral to behaviour and learning.

Canine Behaviour Consulting (2020–2022)

Canine Behaviour Consultant, ABCs4Dogs
Toronto, Ontario

During this period, I worked as a canine behaviour consultant providing community-based adult education focused on ethical, relational human–animal relationships, with particular attention to families with children and caregivers navigating safety, care, and responsibility.

This work emphasized learning as embodied, relational, and situated, and drew on feminist ethics of care, non-coercive training philosophies, and emerging multispecies scholarship.

Scope of Practice included:

• Individualized, in-home learning engagements with parents and caregivers focused on canine behaviour, communication, welfare, and child–dog safety
• Supporting adults in developing non-coercive, dog-centred approaches to training and care that foreground ethical responsibility rather than compliance or control
• Designing learning processes attentive to family dynamics, caregiving labour, emotional labour, and safety, particularly in households with children
• Working with dogs experiencing behavioural challenges, chronic stress, or health-related vulnerabilities, approaching care as a shared, relational practice

Learning With Dogs and Communities

This consulting work was shaped by sustained engagement with professional dog trainers, animal welfare practitioners, and international animal welfare communities, including learning experiences in Mexico and India. These relationships foregrounded cultural variation in understandings of dogs, care, responsibility, and coexistence, and challenged dominant Eurocentric and instrumental assumptions about human–animal relationships.

Relationship to Research, Teaching, and Writing

This practice-based work directly informed the development of my research program on multispecies care, adult learning, and ethical responsibility, including the establishment of the FIDO Research Lab and SSHRC-funded research on multispecies families and care labour, as well as new projects currently in development in Toronto and India.

It also informs my creative and scholarly writing. Following Olive, a creative non-fiction book currently under contract with Cooke McDermid Literary Agency, traces my eight-year inquiry into the question: Who is the dog, and who are we in relationship with them?

This work continues to shape my teaching in critical adult education, particularly in relation to:

• ethical reflexivity and relational accountability
• practice-based and professional graduate education
• community-engaged pedagogy
• qualitative, arts-based, and multispecies methodologies

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Public Writing About Dog-Human Relationships

Blog Posts Focused on Caring for Dogs