Media
Television
Animal Planet - Appearances as "Trainer to the Stars" - Demonstrations of successful students.
Animal Planet - "Hollywood Unleashed" - Series appearances by celebrity clients and their dogs.
NBC - "Men, Women and Dogs" - Animal Consultant and provider of dogs for a series about single people and their dogs.
NBC - "The George and Alana Show" - Trained Doberman owned by actor George Hamilton and former wife Alana.
Articles
Bloodlines Magazine
LA Weekly Newspaper
Argonaut Newspaper
North County Times Article
Saturday, October 30, 2004
Owning a new puppy is somewhat akin to being the parent of a young and unruly child. They aren't potty trained, they put all sorts of things in their mouths, and you have to watch them constantly. To help dog owners train their young pets, animal behaviorist Lyssa Dennis offers group and private obedience classes through her business, CORRECT-A-PET.
Dennis said she teaches owners how to properly communicate with their pets, and through positive motivational techniques she has the dogs responding to commands that they would normally ignore. The positive motivational techniques are mainly composed of food, hand signals and praise, Dennis said. She added that body language is more important than tone of voice when training dogs. "It goes more with the way dogs communicate with themselves," Dennis said.In her group puppy class and her novice class, which is for dogs 7 months and older, Dennis allows only six dogs at a time.
In the puppy course, pups are taught the basics: sit, down, stay and come, as well as street boundary training so that the animals will not be tempted to run into the street.
At the end of every class, which meets every Saturday for six weeks, Dennis gives owners tips on how to deal with problem areas such as potty training and teething.
For the novices, Dennis focuses on similar commands and adds heeling and proper walking. Both novice and puppy classes cost a total of $95 for six weeks.
In addition to her group obedience classes, Dennis holds private lessons at her clients' homes, where she deals with a range of behavioral problems, from anxiety issues to barking. Dennis said she is an expert on aggressive behavior in dogs, and works with the animals to find the reason for their aggression and how to curtail it.
Customer Toni Atos said Dennis has worked with her dog, Vegas, on two occasions in the last month.
Before her obedience lessons, Vegas, a 10 1/2-month-old Labrador retriever with a fondness for jumping on people, was a bit too much for Atos to handle. However, Dennis taught Atos the techniques she needed to control her dog.
"She still has a while to go, but she is definitely a different dog from before Lyssa came," Atos said. "(Dennis) is just wonderful; she really has a gift with animals."
Aside from the training and obedience aspect of her business, Dennis also testifies for bite cases in court, she said.
She has been in business for 16 years, beginning her business in Los Angeles while she was studying to become a child therapist. Realizing that dog training was profitable and enjoyable, she decided that she would become an animal behaviorist instead.
About a year ago, Dennis moved with her family to Carlsbad and opened a second location.
|
|
