Instructors

Karen Reilly - Director of Family Manners Training

Karen has been teaching for PCOTC since 2003. Currently she is the Family Manners Training Director and teaches Family Manners Program classes: Puppy, Foundation and Skills as well as CGC/TDI classes.

Helping handlers to understand their dogs and build that all important trust is key in Karen’s teaching. Karen's philosophy is using hands off training as much as possible, using positive reinforcement and operant conditioning.

Karen is a Certified Pet Dog Trainer and professional member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers. She is certified by Sue Sternberg for the CASA shelter dog program for Training Wheels and Train to Adopt. She has been the volunteer dog trainer for the SPCA of Westchester located in Briarcliff Manor, NY since May 2001.

Karen is founder of the SPCA's Lead The Way program (teaching the public to walk, socialize and teach basic behaviors to the shelter dogs increasing their adopt-ability). She also evaluates dogs for the Golden Outreach Program run by the shelter.

Karen's current teachers are her Siberian Husky Yukon and Leo a "what kind of dog is that?" mix. Email her at pawsforobedience@yahoo.com

Mary Horne

Mary has loved, lived with and trained dogs and other animals her whole life. An avid fan of reward-based training and especially clicker training, Mary is passionate about helping dog owners develop lasting partnerships with their canine companions based on effective communication, caring and trust. She uses a variety of force-free, dog- and people-friendly training techniques, all of which are founded on the modern science of how dogs and humans learn. She truly believes that training should be fun at both ends of the leash!

Mary enjoys training and competing with her own dogs (two Labs and two rescues), who hold multiple titles in a variety of venues including AKC and CDSP Obedience and AKC and APDT Rally Obedience. In addition to teaching at PCOTC, she owns Good Dog “U”, LLC, a private Stamford, CT–based training business. She is a 2001 honors graduate of the San Francisco Academy for Dog Trainers, led by behaviorist Jean Donaldson (Culture Clash, Dogs are from Neptune, etc.).

A certified trainer (CPDT) since 2003, Mary is a registered evaluator for the AKC’s Canine Good Citizen program and a professional member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT). She is former Executive Trainer for the Good Dog Foundation's animal-assisted therapy training program. Prior to founding Good Dog “U” in 1999, she spent nearly 20 years in international business and crisis management. Mary annually attends a variety of educational events to keep ahead of the curve in modern dog training. Reach Mary via email at GoodDogU@optonline.net