Renee Shriver has been a dog sport instructor for 15+ years, and is well known in the tri-state area for her work in a wide variety of dog sports.
Her love of all things dog-related can be traced back to her childhood, when she helped her mother at a local training club and showed dogs in obedience. Her mother was good friends with a collie breeder so a lot of her earliest memories were playing with the puppies to socialize them and snuggling with all the collies. It should be no surprise that she fell in love with dog training when she was reintroduced to it as an adult and became addicted to working with dogs!
She her took my first obedience class in 1999 and started teaching in 2003. She says, “I love the bond that dog training brought to my life. Angel and I started a journey together to bring smiles to people when she became my first therapy dog. My journey started with Angel but each dog since has helped me to explore new dog sports and to continue my journey. Currently Melody, Annabel and I are active in agility, obedience, rally, musical freestyle, pet therapy, nose work and tricks. Melody has also introduced me to tracking.”
This is evident in the numerous titles her dogs have earned. Melody has a MACH4 in agility, an ARCHMX8 in APDT Rally and a UDX-C in AKC Obedience. Annabel has an ARCHMX in APDT Rally and in 2019 was ranked the #1 ARCHEX dog and #14 dog in WCRL in the U.S. She is currently is working on her MACH in agility.
She became a full-time dog trainer after being laid off from an office job, and has taught private and group classes in agility, rally, competition obedience, focus/attention, pet obedience, therapy dog/CGC, nose work, tricks, Treibball and musical freestyle.
She says, “My teaching methods are based on positive training; I love to make training fun for both the human and canine members of the team. After all, we do this for fun and we ask the dogs to do a lot for us, so let’s make it a happy experience for the whole team! On Monday afternoons you will find me visiting a local hospital with Melody or Annabel, my current therapy dogs. Over the past 20 years, my dogs and I have made hundreds of visits to schools, Girl Scout troops, libraries, hospitals, nursing homes, programs teaching dog etiquette to children, giving demonstrations and more.”
Most weekends will find Renee trialing in one of our many sports. She believes that to teach competition sports, she needs to be out competing with her canine partner. While she’s earned numerous titles on her dogs, she believes that “the fun is more important than any title we will ever earn.”
An AKC certified Canine Good Citizen, Tricks and Temperament evaluator, Renee loves working with people and their dogs to enhance the bond between them and help them to reach their greatest potential as a team. She also believes in giving back, and has worked with rescue organizations doing fostering, intake, home visits, transport and evaluations.