Karen is the owner and founder of Dog Solutions. Since the start of her career in 2001 she has an impressive list of achievements. Her love for animals and her strong desire to improve the relationships between people and their companion animals shows in the programs she writes and the courses Dog Solutions offer.
Karen is one of only two Certified Dog Behaviour Consultants certified by the International Association of Animal Behaviour Consultants (IAABC) in Australia. This means that Karen’s own case work was assessed by a panel of the worlds best canine behaviour consultants and her work was found to be of the very highest standard. (2017).
Karen is also a Certified Behaviour adjustment training instructor (CBATI). She is one of the nine CBATI’s in Australia. This Certification is an American certification that shows the holder is an experienced and skilled consultant in working with and rehabilitating reactive and fearful dogs. Karen was part of the first Australian class. Her certification was gained in 2015.
She is also a certified Dog Bite Prevention trainer and Be a tree presenter for children certified through Doggone Safe. (2015 and 2016).
In order to stay current in her skills Karen attends seminars, workshops and educationals regularly. Karen is passionate about learning and constantly improving her own skills and works hard to bring the best techniques from all over the globe to her clients. Karen has been fortunate enough to attend educationals and seminars with Bob Bailey, Turid Rugaas, Robyn Hood, Nicole Wilde, Grisha Stewart, Joey Iverson, Terry Ryan, Clive Wynne, Jill Marie O’Brien and a number of local presenters.
Karen is a full member of the Pet Professional guild Australia and is a certified Pet Dog Ambassador Assessor.
She is very proud to have been invited to be head trainer on the Mates for inmates program for Melbourne City mission, the Department of Justice and the Lort Smith Animal Hospital. This role was accepted in 2016 and is current.
Karen is very proud of the programs she has developed using the wealth of knowledge she has acquired learning from the worlds very best. Her proudest moment was being asked by Turid Rugaas for permission to use her work developing a mobile snuffle park to help in calming anxious dogs as part of Turid’s lectures. Karen has since had several of her original ideas shared by internationally renowned trainers to educate other trainers.
Innovative thinking and nearly two decades of experience see Karen being first choice for referrals from Veterinarians, other behaviour consultants and trainers and other industry professionals.