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Tiffany Baker, CBCC-KA, CCUI
Tiffany Baker is a certified canine behavior consultant as well as the founder and owner of Boss Babe Dog Training, LLC in Dallas, Texas. She has been working with dogs professionally since 2013. Tiffany specializes in aggression, fear-based behaviors, anxiety, new animal integration, and families with children and dogs.
Her training journey began with her dog, Nadia, otherwise known as Naughty Nadia. Nadia was an anxious mess, and Tiffany quickly realized she was out of her depth. What started as a means to better her dog’s well-being and mend their relationship quickly grew into a passion for the science of animal behavior. She began to immerse herself in the animal rescue community and has continued her involvement for many years.
Over the years, Tiffany became a licensed Family Paws Parent Educator, received her title as a Certified Behavior Consultant Canine (CBCC-KA), and a Certified Control Unleashed Instructor (CCUI). She is extremely talented in her ability to effectively modify behaviors in dogs and provide tremendous support, compassion, and guidance to pet guardians. She advocates for a positive reinforcement, science-based training style. She believes that these methods are not only the most effective way to teach a dog and handler new behaviors, but they also create an enhanced understanding within the canine-human relationship.
With each dog and handler team, Tiffany has the pleasure of working with, her dedication and drive to continue learning and developing her skills in the animal behavior field grows.
Eva Bertilsson
With a Master's degree in behavior analysis and a passion for animal welfare, Eva Bertilsson works as an educator and consultant in a variety of settings. Together with business partner Emelie Johnson Vegh, Eva runs their collaboration Carpe Momentum. "E&E" met on the agility field 20 years ago. They teach seminars and online courses on a wide range of topics and are known for concepts such as seamless training sessions, start-button behaviors, and flowcharts. In 2015 they teamed up with Peggy Hogan to discuss their joint passion for the learner initiated aspect of training and developed the now-classic Animals in Control lecture.
Eva lives in the village of Ljungskile in the west of Sweden, where she also organizes the yearly CCC conference on Choice, Control & Communication. She is a FearFree speaker and a board member of the Swedish Association for Behavior Analysis, enjoying networking and connecting people and ideas. Her most recent cooperation has the nerdy name ABC247.wtf and is a webshop for products and online material.
Nikki Bowling
Nikki Bowling lives in Cincinnati Ohio with her husband and two rescued wolfdogs. She has had a deep passion for working with animals since a young age and was introduced to positive reinforcement training early at her local training club. She has been an owner of rescued wolfdogs since 2006. Dealing with fear and reactivity issues with her own dogs lead her to discover Control Unleashed and incorporate the philosophy into all future interactions with animals.
She has volunteered whenever possible at the Full Moon Farm Wolfdog Sanctuary, where she has learned about husbandry and enrichment and has assisted with rescue transports, care of resident animals, building containment, and screening and education of new owners. She is the founder of Ohio River Wolves, which is an owner support group that meets weekly to walk and socialize dogs and wolfdogs. Through this group, she has gotten to know a community of local dog and wolfdog owners and has assisted with training, bottle feeding and early care of wolfdog puppies, and offering advice and guidance to local owners.
Hannah Branigan, CCUI
Hannah Branigan, the author of Awesome Obedience, is a self-proclaimed training nerd. With the belief that everyone (dogs and humans alike) learn best in an environment free of criticism, Hannah breaks down complex skills into bite-sized, accessible pieces and develops practical techniques that leave her students with a sense of achievement and success.
She is on a mission to make training fun and enjoyable for dogs and their handlers, which means optimizing positive reinforcement techniques across species. She is fascinated by behavior and learning, and passionate about bringing innovative, science-based solutions to the dog/human learning space.
Hannah has a background in both human sports and biology. Now she applies that knowledge and experience to the world of animal training and canine competitive sports. She enjoys training and competing with her own dogs in a variety of sports. Her competition obedience DVDs, Obedience FUNdamentals and Beyond FUNdamentals, have received rave reviews from trainers all over the world, and her students have earned advanced titles in multiple countries.
Hannah is the host of the popular dog training podcast, Drinking from the Toilet, which focuses on the (often inconvenient) intersection between positive reinforcement philosophy and reality. Her mentorship program, Zero to CD, gives trainers a complete, step-by-step blueprint for earning their first level obedience title with curated support along the way.
Beth Brown, CCBC, CPDT-KSA, CCUI
Beth (she/her) got her behavior start in a local shelter, learning the ins and outs of behavior modification, learning theory, and the extreme emotions that working with shelter animals can inspire. She loves to work with scared, shy, or anxious dogs and cats, helping them find their confidence and ways to cope with the world.
Beth is a Certified Cat Behavior Consultant through the IAABC, is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer Knowledge and Skills Assessed through the CCPDT, and a Certified Control Unleashed Instructor through... well this! She hopes to use her knowledge, skills, and Leslie's pattern games to make a better world for all our animals.
In her downtime, Beth is the mother of four canine fur babies who like to crawl all over her shoulders and head any time she is doing any sort of Zoom or Zoom-like meeting on her computer. She also is slightly obsessed with unicorns and anything that even vaguely resembles a unicorn.
Linlin Cao, PhD, CPDT-KA, CCUI
Linlin has always been passionate about science. When she was working on her Ph.D. dissertation in Material Science and Nano Engineering, she fostered and later adopted her reactive dog Niko.
Niko has opened her eyes to the wonderful world of positive reinforcement and animal behavior. She believes effective training should be based on two-way communication between the trainer and the dog, and she is passionate about giving control back to the dog. She is fascinated by building strong human/dog communication and trust through learning together.
Linlin grew up in a small town in China and came to Rice University in Houston, TX for graduate school. Now she lives in the Washington DC area and owns Dogtor Training. Linlin competes in Nosework and Rally Obedience with Niko and in Nosework with her field Labrador Sunny. She also enjoys learning tricks and Control Unleashed exercises with her cat Simon. Linlin is currently training to become a Certified Professional Canine Fitness Trainer (CPCFT) to help dogs’ mind and body.
Meaghan Cassell, CCUI
Meaghan has 13 years of experience as a professional dog trainer helping clients with everything from basic manners to complex behavioral issues. She has a special passion for working with anxious and fearful dogs. She fell in love with the Control Unleashed program for its emphasis on choice, communication, and compassion.
Meaghan believes in an integrative approach and focuses on helping clients meet their dogs’ emotional and physical needs along with providing training support. Her favorite things about dog training are the emphasis on relationship building, the ability to incorporate creativity, and the focus on continuing education.
She lives in North Texas with her three amazing pups. When they’re not working with clients, their favorite thing to do is to take the trails for some decompression and all the sniffs.
Julie Daniels, CCUI
Julie Daniels won her first award for writing in the fourth grade, and she was training dogs long before that. She learned to walk by holding on to the family's German Shepherd. She currently owns two Border Collies and also gets to live and work with an Australian Koolie, a Staffy mix, and a senior Beagle mix.
Julie lives in Deerfield, NH, where she owns Kool Kids Agility and teaches CU classes. She is also certified in TAGteach methodology. For 28 years, she ran dog training camps at her world-renowned White Mountain Agility camp. Some of the theme camps she developed there were Wild Child, Speed-Em-Up, Novice Genius, Jumping Genius, and the WMA Instructor Certification Course, which honed the skills of hundreds of teachers and thousands of dogs worldwide.
Julie has competed and won with many different dogs, including two Rottweilers, a Springer Spaniel, a Cairn Terrier, two Corgis, and five Border Collies. She is the only person to make USDAA Grand Prix finals with a Rottie or a Springer, and she did it two times each. She is also a two-time national agility champion and a two-time international champion. She was the expert voice of Cynosport agility for many years, doing livestream video commentary at international events seen worldwide.
She is the author of four agility books and three DVDs. She teaches popular online classes, including Baby Genius, Empowerment, Cookie Jar Games, Crazy Good, Shaping Games, Magic Mats, and Control Unleashed games.
Jen Digate, CBCC-KA, CCUI
Jen is a behavior consultant, coach, and writer. Jen is particularly interested in the intersection of equine behavioral health, biomechanics, skills progression, and horse-centric training. Jen has been an avid equine clicker trainer since 2008 and her two main interests are taming and training untouched mustangs (she has five) and learning academic art form riding and converting it into the positive paradigm. She was a speaker at ClickerExpo from 2016 through 2018.
Jen's use of Control Unleashed with her dog clients led her to explore its applications in her work with client horses and her own horses. She is interested in looking critically at how we structure training sessions for horses, bringing in methods from other species when applicable, and creating the most engaged, motivated learners possible.
Dr. Laura Donaldson, PhD, CDBC, KPA CTP, CCUI
Laura Donaldson, PhD, CDBC, KPA CTP, CCUI, is a retired Ivy League professor (Emeritus, Cornell University) who has also been a dog trainer and canine behavior specialist for 15 years. She holds a PhD in the humanities (her favorite course to teach was called "Gone to the Dogs: The Canine in Literature and Culture") and has done master's level course work in applied animal behavior. Laura is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant through the IAABC, a Karen Pryor Certified Training Partner, and a Certified Control Unleashed Instructor.
Since 2006, Laura has owned Four Paws, Four Directions Dog Training & Behavior Consulting LLC, located in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Her full-time behavior consulting practice focuses mainly on aggressive behavior and she teaches both in-person and online Control Unleashed classes. She also has created a program called "Slow Thinking is Lifesaving for Dogs™" which is directed at dogs struggling with aggression as well as other behavior issues.
Laura is an award-winning writer and is very proud that her essay, "The Cognitive Revolution and Everyday Dog Training: The Case of Look at That," won the 2018 Maxwell Medallion Award for best magazine article on dog training and behavior. She lives with her husband and three dogs—one working Border Collie, a couch potato Golden Retriever and a Working Bearded Collie from the UK—as well as Obi, the African Gray parrot and a flock of Navajo Churro and Icelandic sheep.
Janet Finlay
Janet has been working with reactive dogs and their guardians for over 10 years and takes a holistic approach that addresses both ends of the lead. She is an ACE Instructor, a TTouch CA Practitioner 3, and a certified dog trainer with the UK Association of Pet Dog Trainers (MAPDT 01046). She is also a qualified coach for humans.
Janet is the author of the book "Your End of the Lead: Changing how you think and act to help your reactive dog." She teaches internationally and runs a number of successful online programs, which have helped hundreds of guardians and their dogs change their lives for the better. Most recently, she has been working with Empowered Dog to bring a holistic approach to reframing reactivity to trainers around the world.
Control Unleashed techniques have been a core component of her work with reactive dogs from the beginning, and she has recently been exploring the synergies between this and her work with ACE.
Rachel Forday, CCUI, VSA-CDT
Rachel started out her journey with dogs as a volunteer at an animal shelter in Singapore. There, she trained closely with many dogs who displayed reactive behaviors towards people and other dogs using force-free and positive reinforcement-based methods. At this very shelter, she met her heart dog, a Singapore Special (a.k.a. Southeast Asian Village Dog) named Dave, who she brought all the way to Liverpool, UK, with her where they are now based.
Rachel now runs her dog training business, Dog At Heart, where she specializes in working virtually with clients around the world who have dogs with fear-based and reactivity issues through the comprehensive programs that she has created. Rachel puts an emphasis on helping dogs with these issues feel more relaxed overall, starting in the home to out in the real world.
Outside of training, Rachel is very active on social media, especially on Instagram, where she manages a few pages, including her dog Dave’s page and her own training page. On these social media platforms, she is vocal in speaking up about anti-racism and the humane and ethical treatment of dogs.