Animal Intuitions

01/10/2026

Started training for turtle trails!

06/21/2025

That's a wrap for DuPage County Forest!

Mela has completed her first 30 day contract of sniffing out endangered turtles.

She found 9/9 Blanding's turtles during trials. Then onto the field. Funny story, the weather never got hot enough for the bulk of the turtles to leave the swamp to go nest, so Mela and 2 experienced K9 Conservation Detection dog teams (from WI) found zero turtles in 14 days. A couple humans found a handful on land but the Ecologists pulled the bulk directly out of the swamp from telemetry readers.

Blanding's turtles are endangered and highly preyed upon by raccoons, et al. The Head Start Program takes female turtles, induces them with pitocin, collects the eggs, hatches them in incubators, and raises them for 2 years in captivity between zoos, aquariums, and universities. At 2 years, the turtles are released into the wild where they are then rarely predated upon. The program is still following turtles from 1996.

Mela has been invited to assist Lake County who has not begun nesting season yet!

At this point in time, Mela and I are the only team in IL training for K9 Conservation Detection of any taxa 🎉

04/14/2025

Follow us on IG and TikTok for Mela and my journey into Conservation Detection of Blandings turtles!

Field trials start in May 2025!

10/01/2023

The hardware stores make it easy to train your pups for Halloween. You can be as close or as far away for sensitive varying pups!

We started down the aisle but Mela was unaffected so we got closer and closer.

11/25/2022

Friday clients are the cutest clients!

This sweetie was struggling with just one behavior and while we did not put it on cue yet... it's not ready for a cue... we did successfully get him to repeat it many times by changing the environment for success!

07/14/2022

Include your dog's address on their tags!

I found this fella running down the middle of the road, he happily jumped in the car, and called the number on the tag. 8x. No answer. Googled the address on the tag, and drove him right home. Wife was home and grateful for her dog who had been out with her husband but gotten away!

Most dogs are within 10 houses of being lost and can be easily gotten back home with an address!

03/10/2022

Teach your dog to be invited to exit. This way, if there is no human to cue them to exit, they will be more likely to stay safe inside the threshold if the door is left open. Allow the door itself be the cue to stay inside. Let the human be the cue to exit.

03/09/2021

02/19/2021

A Great Dane Ballet!

01/14/2021

Happy One Decade Work Anniversary to us!

Over 15 years training with nearly 200 species of animals Awards-winning. TV dog expert. Dog Training Batavia, IL

01/01/2021

Happy New Year! Today, let's begin with a new round of with our kids and dogs!

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