Meet our trainer: Jane Saunders

Certifications / Degrees:

 

B.S. Sociology and Equine Science Minor from Virginia Tech

 

AKC Canine Good Citizen (CGC) and AKC Trick Dog Evaluator

 

TAGteach Level 1

 

CTDI - Certified Trick Dog Instructor

Jane Saunders is the owner and head trainer at Fun With Dogs Training. Jane has been training dogs since 2006, although her love of animal training started in childhood when she trained her cats and pet mice to do tricks and obstacle courses. Jane is very knowledgeable about animal behavior and training and is passionate about helping people improve their relationship with their pets. In addition to working as a professional dog trainer, teaching up to 20 classes per week, Jane helped rehabilitate, train, and place animals at a local shelter which helped her work with a wide variety of animals with known and unknown backgrounds of all ages. Yes, old dogs can learn new tricks, shy dogs can gain confidence, and hyper dogs can be so well trained people think they are "calm".  

 

Jane only uses proven and effective science-based force-free positive reinforcement training and she can help you transition if you are not familiar with that style. If you love your dog like family you should train them like family with clear, proven, humane methods that make learning a positive and pain-free experience for both the human and the dog.

 

Jane is also passionate about competing in dog sports. Her first dog, Frankie, was 11 months old when she brought him home and the two of them went from their first agility competition to USDAA Nationals (Cynosport World Games) in just 8 months. Since then, Jane and Frankie have competed at Westminster, AKC Nationals, USDAA Nationals/Regionals, and UKI Nationals/Regionals and have many wins and placements from those competitions. Even if you have no desire to compete in agility introducing agility obstacles to your dog is a great way to build confidence!

Send us an email to [email protected] should you have any questions!

My current and past Dogs....

Frankie the Papillon

Frankie is now retired but we have been on quite the journey together! He was my "Novice A" dog (first agility dog). He has won and placed at National and Regional events all over the US! He competed at Westminster, AKC Nationals, USDAA Nationals (Cynosport), and UKI Nationals.

Jo the Papillon

I am really hoping Jo and I will be able to compete in agility, she was almost old enough to start to competing when I found out that she has a grade 2/3 luxating patella so we have paused agility training to focus on PT.

She earned her TDCH and TDCH-M through the DMWYD trick titling program which required 101 witnessed tricks including 10 at the expert level. She also has her ETD title (Expert Trick Dog) through AKC.

Katniss the

Border Collie

The very best cuddler, agility partner, tiny human, service not service dog. I miss her every day.

Anubis the Australian Shepherd

Anubis was my sister's dog that she got around the same time I got Frankie. The 4 of us learned dog agility together!

Anubis was a very smart dog who really needed a "job" to do so when my sister was at work I would teach him tricks. I bought a book called 101 Dog Tricks by Kyra Sundance and basically taught him every trick in the book. This is what really started me in dog training. Those tricks are from a program called DMWYD (Do More With Your Dog) which is a title training program that inspired AKC's trick titling program.

Fun fact Anubis was a latent learner which meant that he would think about the training session on his own and even if we didn't end a session with him completing the trick he could take what was shown and think about it and know what to do by the next day, it was very neat!