Holly Zick has been competing with her dog for a little over a year and has helped friends and family with training all her life. She first began helping others formally in 2021, and in February 2022, earned her AKC evaluator approved for AKC S.T.A.R Puppy, CGC, AKC Community Canine, Urban CGC, Video Home Manners and Trick Dog tests.

Holly first started competing with her miniature aussie/miniature poodle mix. She knew he was going to need more physical and mental stimulation than any of her previous dogs, and decided to do an obedience class with him and maybe try agility. She joined a local AKC club, started an obedience class, and after COVID hit, enrolled in the Karen Pryor Academy online and continued to train. Once things opened back up again, she entered an Obedience and Rally trial at the club. She was surprised at how much fun it was and took first place in all their classes that weekend. She was hooked!

While training, Holly loves watching her dog trying to reason out what it is she wants him to do and see his face light up when he gets it. While competing, she loves the way he struts around with his head and tail high, he looks like he is saying, “Look at me and be amazed at what I can do.” She’s most proud of how her dog has grown, as he lived the first six months of his life in a kennel at the breeders and was never properly socialized or exposed to different things in normal everyday life. This caused him to be afraid of things like brooms, garage bags, cardboard boxes and even squeaky toys. Now, although he is still more cautious than most dogs, he has gained enough confidence to do a teeter in agility.

For years, Holly’s family has told her that she should be a trainer. Although she always trained her dogs to have good manners, she was never interested in formal obedience classes or trials and was never happy with the old training methods. Her dogs would obey but they didn’t seem happy about it. Once she learned operant conditioning and positive reinforcement and saw how her dog responded to it, Holly’s whole attitude about obedience training and dog training in general changed. She wanted to be a trainer to teach others what she learned so they could teach their dog and hopefully have as much fun at it as she does.

Holly believes Life Lessons training is the most important training that a dog needs to learn. These lessons teach the owner the basics of training and teach the dog how to be a good companion. Many dogs end up hurt or in animal shelters because the owner didn’t know how to train the dog and therefore the dog never learned how to behave in a way that keeps them safe and makes living with them a pleasure.

Holly’s training philosophy is that training should be fun for both the person and the dog. If you make training fun, then it is a pleasure for both the owner and the dog!

HOLLY ZICK

AKC STAR Puppy & Life Lessons Focus