Articles
Tails of an ABC Trainer
Delores Burton, ABC grad, is a very happy trainer since her graduation and with
good reason! This is because she is now working with probably the best known dog
trainer in the country, Cesar Millan the famous “Dog Whisperer”.
Delores graduated from Animal Behavior College in August of 2006 so, you might
ask yourself, how did this all come about so quickly?
Delores is one of an ever growing group of people that come to ABC already
possessing professional dog training experience. After being a legal secretary
for thirty years, Delores decided to take her side business as a dog trainer to
the next level. Delores had been training dogs part time for many years through
her own training company “K-9 Campus”, when she decided she was ready to take
her dog training passion to a higher level.
The first step, she says, to making this a more serious career was to enroll at
ABC which she did in February 2004, “I wanted to be more credible and that was
possible with the proper schooling,” says Delores. As she went through the
program, she made the transition from obedience training to more behavior
modification. When it came time to do her ten hours of volunteer work for
“Students Saving Lives,” Delores contacted Cesar Millan, who she had met five
years prior when he helped her to rehabilitate some of her client’s problem
dogs. They had always kept in touch, says Delores, but if it wasn’t for her ABC
required volunteer time, she would have never had the opportunity to work with
Cesar like she is today. She began to volunteer at Cesar’s Dog Psychology Center
applying what she learned at ABC along with what she observed while
volunteering. When her volunteer time was completed, she asked Cesar if she
could continue working with him. She currently works at the Dog Psychology
Center twice a week on a volunteer basis and Cesar continues to mentor her.
About seventy percent of the dogs she deals with there are aggressive and were
on death row at the animal shelter. Using all she has learned through her
studies and experience, Delores helps to rehabilitate these dogs to give them a
second chance at life. She appeared once on “The Dog Whisperer” as a dog handler
for the Hurricane Katrina episode last season and hopes to have more
opportunities like that in the third season. The rest of her time is devoted to
private lessons where Delores knows it’s about not only training the dog, but
more importantly training the owner. Delores took her dream of working with
animals and turned it into a successful career. My goal is to keep dogs out of
pound and in homes with their owners where they belong.” I know I have saved
several dogs from being put down due to aggression and other behavior problems.”