Meet Kelly, CPDT-KA

Kelly Gordon has always had a love for dogs ever since she was a little girl. Jesse, American Cocker Spaniel, was Kelly’s very first dog when she was a baby and was so playful with both her and her brother. When Kelly moved to the United States her parents wouldn’t fly Jesse and thought it best to leave her with her uncle. Although she was heartbroken, Kelly’s family soon fell in love with the Australian Shepherd and obtained two within a few years of one another. Matisse and Lucy were wonderfully smart dogs and always wanted to please everyone, Lucy even figured out how to open the front door for Kelly when she came home from school. Kelly was much too young to know anything about dog training and her mom did most of the work, but she still knew her dogs were smart and wanted to learn more about it. She began a job with Eclectus parrots and green-wing macaws, training them to speak in order to use them in therapy for autistic children before her first job working with dogs.

When Kelly was 22, her two Aussies were seniors and passed away within a month of one another due to cancer and old age. Kelly had just begun working at PetSmart, assisting customers with pet care questions and handling dogs in the hotel. She vowed that she would do right by her next dog and enroll in positive training classes. About a month after their loss, Kelly’s family obtained a new Aussie, Cody, who has become her partner in crime (and training!). As soon as he was allowed to venture into the world, he was taking clicker training classes at PetSmart with Katie McGuire and he and Kelly absolutely fell in love with it. They took everything from basic obedience to advanced obedience and as many tricks classes as they could. Kelly knew then and there that she wanted to train dogs and help people build that strong, trusting bond between them and their best friend.

Kelly was formerly an attendant at Pampered Pet Hotel and has been clicker training for about six years and has gotten very much involved in the competition obedience world. She takes agility classes with Cody and teaches him new things all the time. Alongside her training experience, Kelly owns a dog sitting and walking business (The Clicker Sitter) which she has nearly ten years of experience with dogs, cats, birds and amphibians. She is a member of APDT and looks forward to continued learning and application of modern dog traininig techniques.