Written By: Victoria Regan

Since I was a young girl I have had a passion for training dogs. My family’s first dog, named Chloe, filled my life with fifteen years of joy and happiness. Saying ‘goodbye’ to Chloe was very difficult but I was grateful that my first dog was so gentle and was such a great companion, tolerating my sister and I at every stage growing up.

Soon after, my mom adopted a Swiss Mountain rescue dog named Bonnie.  This dog stole my heart with her intelligence, I started doing at home trick and obedience training with her.  The more she learned, the more excited I was becoming when interacting with other dogs and  I soon began to fall in love with training and saw potential in all dogs. I soon recognized that I understood dogs and could very naturally manage their behavior. This is when my spark for dog training began. In 2013 I decided to enroll in Canada West Canine Center to become a Certified Advanced Obedience Trainer and Master Trainer. In order to attend canine school you needed to bring your own dog, I asked my mom if I could bring Bonnie our family dog, but she  suggested instead I got my own dog. I was so excited to have my own dog, to get a puppy, bring it to training school and raise a good dog! I always loved German Shepherds and I found puppies for sale (back then at 17 years of age I didn’t know anything about proper breeding practices). I ended up finding Nala, I adopted her at 4 months old and she was my shadow, she was my baby, I loved her so much. I attended Canada West Canine Center with Nala and obtained my certifications, Nala was the top dog when it came to Tracking, she was a natural and even surprised the head teacher who trained hundreds of tracking dogs over 30 years of training. This sparked my love for canine tracking.

In 2014 after completing my training at CWCC I began to build my business at 17 years old. I started with dog walks and walk and train. Then I began teaching group obedience classes in Lumby. I then created a tracking course and had a huge amount of interest. During this time I worked at a pet store in Vernon part time, as my focus was building my business. Because of the support of my amazing partner Rory and my mom, I soon became busy with my business and left the pet store in 2017.

Since then I have been working full time as a dog trainer and building my business. I continue to expand my dog training education and knowledge over the years to provide the best I can for all my canine clients and their people. Throughout 2017 – 2020 I focused on business growth and development, by providing more canine services, hiring employees, perfecting our courses and programs. In 2017 we adopted our Weimaraner Misty who has been such an amazing dog, she has helped with all of my training clients and has been such a great companion over the years. During this time I also enjoyed travelling, lived in a campervan in New Zealand for a while, learned to scuba dive in Australia off a live aboard boat on the Great Barrier Reef, hiked all of the Monashee Mountains, explored BC, and loved being out in nature on any type of adventure with my partner Rory. On every BC adventure my dog would always be by my side, this grew my interest for training dogs to be off leash reliable through ecollar training, not only to teach them to come when called but also the safety factor of being off leash in the backcountry.

In 2020 the world came to a stop and my main focus was on business sustainability, this uncertain time was unsettling and stressful as a small business owner, but I was determined to keep my business alive and thriving. I focused strongly on creating training videos during this time as everything was transitioning to online. 

I then became pregnant and gave birth to my beautiful baby girl Amara in September 2021, becoming a mom took me by surprise, a whirlwind of emotions and new challenges. I enjoyed my time off with my little girl throughout September – June 2022. During this time we also sold our home in town, bought 23 acres of raw land in Cherryville (which is a dream come true) with another family. All 6 of us on this property are working together toward building it into a homestead. We are currently living in a tiny home and learning to live off-grid. 

This July we had to say goodbye to our beloved Nala. Her hip-dysplasia and chronic lung infections where becoming worst and worst and she was barely able to get up and walk more then 2 steps at a time. This was the hardest goodbye of my life, Nalas body had failed her but her mind was still sound. She was a loyal, wise, intuitive, gentle giant and brought us so much joy and love over the years. We said goodbye to Nala with a passing ceremony held by Adrienne from Naturally Connected Pets. The transitioning ceremony was beautiful and honored Nala’s life in the best way possible. Read more about Nala below.

I am learning to navigate the new found challenge of juggling a baby, property chores, living off-grid, training courses and business changes, its all been quite the adventure. In the summer I decided to make some changes to the business, so I could balance my time and energy between my baby and training. I decided that having employees and offering dog hikes and one to one training programs was just to much for me at this time, and did not align with where the business is going. My time is now limited with minimal daycare options, I had to recreate my business to work as a part time business, being limited to 2 days of daycare a week posts its own challenges. I am still learning every day, how to be a mom, how to continue my training education and learning, how to run a successful business and serve my clients with the best I can and how to live off grid in the bush. But through this adventure I have learned that it is better to be vulnerable, show who you are and be proud of it.