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Lisa Zwartkruis |
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Lisa started out riding and training horses at a young age. She finally convinced her parents to get her a dog in high school and got hooked on dog training ever since. She continued to seek out every opportunity to learn more about animal behavior and training. In her senior year of high school, she interned at the New York Aquarium in the behavioral husbandry department. There she worked closely with the sea lion trainers, learning a variety of training methodologies.
Shortly after moving to Houston, she connected with Kerry Smith and started training agility with her rescue dog. Han Solo was very independent, had various behavioral issues, and lacked work ethic. This did not make it easy for Lisa to train him. Within a year, they were successfully training on international-type courses. They have come a long way and are now starting to compete in agility, already earning their first titles, including CGC and TKA. Lisa has assisted Kerry in her classes and seminars. She has also volunteered at a shelter, has run, and trained a variety of different dogs. This allowed her to get experience with various behavioral/training issues and work with different breeds, including Border Collies, Aussies, Pumis, Bishons, etc. Currently, she is raising and training her Pumi, Wicket, as a competitive agility dog. |