Dogma Training

Most people assume dog trainers are regulated the way vets or vet techs are. They are not. There is no licensing requirement, no minimum education, no governing body. Anyone can call themselves a dog trainer today and charge for sessions with your dog tomorrow.

That means the burden of knowing what to look for falls entirely on you. And certification, real certification, is not a weekend course. It involves hundreds of hours of hands-on experience, rigorous examination, and continuing education requirements that never stop.

👉 Swipe through to understand what the letters after a trainer's name actually mean, what questions to ask before hiring anyone, and what our standard looks like at Dogma.

KinderPup Goose is bringing the exact energy we want for the long weekend!

Dogma is closed for Labour Day, so phones and emails won't be answered. Members, we're available via the community/app if you need anything.

Happy Pride Calgary! 🏳️‍🌈

We look forward to seeing the pups again on Tuesday!

As Dogma grew, I started to feel the tide change.

Calgary has always had a wonderful and large community of dog trainers who are certified, collaborative, and held themselves to high standards. I had relationships within that community that I valued deeply. So when the pushback came, it came from exactly the place that hurt most.

One trainer told me directly that through Dogma Academy I was creating competition. I appreciated her honesty and understood the concern. But over fifteen years later, I still don't feel like we're doing enough and that we aren't reaching nearly enough dogs in this city. The idea that there was too much good training available never sat right with me.

The rest was more indirect. People talking behind our back. Steering clients away. Attitudes shifting. A community that had once felt collaborative started to feel like it was watching for us to fail and often celebrating when something went wrong.

Within any business, things go wrong - employees leave on difficult terms and clients have bad experiences. That's the reality of running something real. And often, you can't tell your side of the story, so you just take the hit. You'll have times where you have make decisions that some will be unhappy about. What hurt most was feeling like people who knew me, who knew my character, were suddenly believing things about me that weren't true.

I won't pretend it didn't affect me. It made me feel deeply isolated. I had gone from running a small business to managing two locations, a growing team, and an academy, and instead of feeling supported by my community, I felt singled out.

The traits that had gotten me here like marching to my own drum, doing things differently, solving problems my way - I started seeing them through other people's eyes as negatives. It took time to recognize them as exactly what they are. Superpowers.

I think it's important to share that I believe some of what I experienced was because I am a woman.

As my business grew, people stopped trusting me in a different way. There was an assumption that a bigger operation meant I was working off the backs of my team, and that I had somehow removed myself from the work and was simply benefiting from others. Without any understanding of the pressure involved, the decisions being made, or how deeply invested I remained in every part of the business.

People who had once collaborated with me pulled back. As if my growth was taking something from them. And I felt it - the withdrawal, the shift, the quiet message that success at a certain scale made me suspect rather than someone worth learning from or working alongside.

There is a cultural conditioning that tells women another woman's success takes something from theirs. Instead of learning and growing together, we view each other as competition. The majority of large dog training business operators (and there weren't many of us in North America) were male, and they were often viewed very differently. More credible. More respected. Assumed to be doing important work.

I was doing important work. It just wasn't always visible. And I was a woman doing it.

I kept going anyway. I don't react and I reflect. And I've learned that if something bothers people who are comfortable with the status quo, I'm probably on the right path.

What I did with that hurt matters more than the hurt itself. I moved beyond the local community and into small business networks, the chamber, and eventually into board work at an international level. Sitting at a table with leaders who had been through similar journeys changed everything. More on that soon.

And within Academy and our programs, I made a deliberate choice: to build the community I wished had existed for me. Open. Collaborative. Generous. Because the growth of one trainer is good for all of us.

I know I'm not alone in this. Toxicity and gatekeeping are well-known problems in our industry and one of the reasons I've made community and collaboration such a deliberate focus of everything I build.

Those same people, if it still bothers them, I'm likely on the right path.

That's still what I believe. That's still how I lead.

Managing a reactive dog is exhausting. The constant scanning, the route planning, the walk that was fine until it wasn't.

Here's what we want you to know: the work you're doing through vigilance, careful management, and crossing the street before things escalate is not just damage control. It is training. Every calm experience in the presence of a trigger is building something. Every time your dog looks to you instead of reacting, the relationship does its work.

You can't control everything on a walk. But you can control more than you think before you leave the house, on the walk, and when things go wrong.

👉 Swipe through for the full breakdown.

And if you want to go deeper, the blog post is at https://bit.ly/46B76Tc

Your Dogma membership is more than a class. It's a whole community behind you and your dog.

Here's what's included every single month as a member:

🎓 Member Seminars: educational learning to keep you growing
📺 Live-Streaming Classes: watch live from anywhere
💬 Training Support: instant messaging access to our trainers
📱 Video Library: hundreds of training videos available 24/7
📋 Handouts & Guides: resources to support you at home
👥 Online Community: connect, ask questions, and learn alongside other Dogma families
💻 Webinars & Learning: access to a variety of topics
🏷️ Member Pricing: exclusive pricing on services, events & more

And this September, here's what's on the calendar, all included free with your membership:

📅 Family Ties Seminar: September 11th at 6:30 pm
🖥️ Back to School Class: September 13th at 9:00 am
💬 Live Training Support: September 20th at 4:00 pm

Back to school season isn't just for the kids. September is packed and we want you to take full advantage. 🐾

Questions? We're always here to help - call or email us anytime.

Back-to-school season is the perfect time to think about how your kids and your dog are doing together.

Our Director of Behaviour & Education, Shelley Cherniawsky, is a mom of three and shares her home with two dogs. She knows firsthand that the relationship between kids and dogs doesn't just happen. It's built through understanding, communication, and setting everyone up for success.

That's exactly what Family Ties is about.

Join us Friday, September 11th at 6:30 pm for an evening seminar covering body language, supervision strategies, common household scenarios, and realistic expectations for every stage of childhood. You'll leave with practical tools you can use right away.

📅 September 11th | 6:30 pm | Dogma Facility
💰 Free for members / $15 for non-members
👨‍👩‍👧 Owners only please

🔗 Registrations is required. Grab your spot at https://bit.ly/4gKlZHF

📍 Save the date for Dogma’s Open House!

📆 Saturday, September 26 | 1–3 pm | 515 70 Avenue SW

Drop by anytime and see what a day at Dogma actually looks like. Explore the puppy enrichment room and sensory garden, check out the training bay, and meet the trainers behind it all. We’ll have live mini Puppy Success Sessions running, program info for every stage, an enrichment stuffing station, promos, and more! The mural from is an experience in itself!

Special guests from will be on-site too, with a short presentation during the event!

All people- and dog-friendly, fully vaccinated dogs are welcome - no RSVP needed. Just come say hello. 🐶

Full details through the link!

Events Dogma's doors are open. Come see the space, meet the trainers, and bring your dog on Saturday, Sept 26, 1–3 pm. Drop in anytime during the event!

Even with our standards, certified leadership, and everything we had built, I knew we weren't giving puppies the best possible start by putting them straight into day school.

KinderPups had been part of my original vision for the facility. Seeing it finally come to life, when the timing was right and we were ready, was an important milestone in our journey.

Some dogs needed some training support in daycare so we were charging extra for some one-on-one trainer time. Some families declined, and it put us in a difficult position as the dog needed more to be successful/stress-free. I knew there was a better way.

The focus wasn't just obedience. It was about laying the groundwork to help puppies thrive not just in day school, but in life. Smaller groups. More individual attention. A dedicated space for puppies to learn at their own pace.

Our first intake filled quickly. We hit capacity right away and had to hire another puppy trainer almost straight away. The market told us clearly and fast — this was something families needed.

What struck me most was how quickly we saw the impact, especially with the nervous puppies. Having more time and individual focus allowed them to blossom in ways that wouldn't have been possible in a larger group. It was immediate.

We started KinderPups as optional. The benefits were so important that we made it a requirement for all puppies.

Then something unexpected happened. Families didn't want to leave. They were seeing real results and didn't want that to change when their puppy transitioned to regular day school. So we created JuniorPups to bridge the gap.

That progression became the foundation for where all our programs are today.

KinderPups hasn't changed much because we got the core right early, built around what puppies actually need. We've added an enrichment room, a private space and yard, more rest, online learning, Q&A sessions, virtual classes, and a puppy parent community. But the heart of it is the same.

Invest in puppies early. Get it right from the start.

Everything else follows.

National Dog Day is today for everyone else.

Here, it's every day.

Every session, every walk, every class, every school day, and every family we help understand their dog a little better - that's just a regulary day at Dogma.

So today we're not doing anything different. We're just doing what we always do: showing up for dogs and the people who love them.

Before you try that dog training tip you just saw online, pause for a second.

The dog training industry is completely unregulated. Anyone can call themselves a trainer, make content, and build a following. The most shareable advice is rarely the most accurate, and some of the techniques that spread fastest are the ones most likely to make things worse, not better.

A few questions worth asking before trying anything new: Who is actually saying this and what are their qualifications? Does this consider how my dog feels or just what they do? Is this approach kind or does it rely on discomfort or intimidation? Would I be happy for this to be filmed and shared?

Your dog deserves advice built around them. Not around views, trends, or what worked for someone else's dog.

Swipe through for the full breakdown - including how to spot advice worth following.