Tails from the Road is about helping you find fun and adventure with your dogs with some useful training tips. Our site is a resource for you to find the best places to camp, RV, hike and find dog friendly activities. Come along for the ride……
Juliet
Welcome to our Pack! I live a canine-centric life, traveling with my dogs around the US in an RV. As a Certified Professional Dog Trainer, I love to watch dogs, study their behavior and try to figure out why they do what they do, then share that information with you.
My previous Jack Russell Terrier, Minnie (in photo) taught me so much (yes she was difficult), but I’m so grateful for her. I also ran a pet sitting business out of my home in Durango, Colorado and hosted an additional 3-6 dogs in my house, taking them for hikes every day. Wow, that really escalated my education. Then I also taught dog training classes (2-5 a week) in addition to private lessons in Durango. I spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on my dog training education, and received my CPDT (Certified Professional Dog Trainer) classification in 2011. That’s the dog part of my life, of course I’ve always had a dog, 2 weeks is the most time I’ve spent without one since I was a teenager. Yes, they are a very important part of my life!
If you really want details, here’s the past further back…… I grew up in Houston, TX and moved to Telluride, CO at the age of 19 where I spent 25 fabulous years exploring the mountains of Southwest Colorado. Next on to beautiful Durango for 8 years, now home is where I park my Winnebago Minnie.
I am a Professional Member of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers and a Certified Professional Dog Trainer, Knowledge Assessed.
Pack Rules – pertains to Social Media sites also
1. You must be nice, or you need to move on! Also you must play nice!
2. I am opinionated on the following topics: #1 Positive Reinforcement training is what I am completely and totally passionate about. If you are into using shock collars, harsh corrections, pinch collars, then this blog is not for you (or maybe you want to learn?, so then stay). This does not mean permissive, be the parent, no pain should be inflicted.
3. If you have nothing nice to say, then don’t say it! If you have a question or legitimate information to share, awesome, do it nicely please.
4. Want to have your products featured on our blog? We love holistic food (no kibble please), thoughtful companies that make great things for dogs & their humans.
5. We travel full time, so if you company needs representation in the world from a fun, positive Dog Trainer with fabulous sales skills, contact me!
My goal is to inspire dog owners to live well with their dogs and to be able to give their dog’s an enriched life of adventures, daily fun and good food. It’s my hope that we can deepen our awareness and understanding of our dogs that live with us, because that’s all our dogs really want, is to understand and be with us.
Thanks for joining our adventures.
Juliet Whitfield, CPDT-KA
Certified Professional Dog Trainer – Knowledge Assessed
Our most active Social Media Sites are Facebook and Instagram where I post daily.
Mick Wagger
I adopted Mick from the Pagosa Springs, CO Humane Society in the fall of 2010. He was approximately 1 year old then. He had separation anxiety and a wild prey drive for anything that ran. We’ve worked through these issues and he is a calm and very well adjusted guy now. He’s a wonderful brother to Romeo, fun and spirited like Jack Russells are. He’s a great hiker, swimmer, boat rider, dog lover, cat lover, people lover, trickster and snuggler to name a few of his many fabulous qualities.
Romeo
Romeo was born in my house with on Aug 11, 2011. His mother was rescued from the Aztec, NM shelter in the summer of 2011 by Sue Sternberg. His mom, Evie was pregnant and I volunteered to have the puppies. I told my friends 50 times, I am not keeping any of these puppies! Romeo hung around a while and I realized he was a Zen Buddhist. I decided to adopt him when he was 4 months old. He’s the calmest, sweetest, smartest mutt I’ve ever known. Romeo is a great hiker and adventurer. He was raised to be an independent thinker and is very confident in his own skin. He loves to learn new tricks and go new places and is comfortable with all beings and in most places.
Minnie
Minnie passed in January 2014. She had such a huge effect on my life, I just had to include her on this journey. I adopted Minnie from another family in spring of 2001. She was the craziest dog I had ever knew and I almost sent her back! She was terribly under socialized and I had no idea what to do with her at that time in my life. After struggling through many behavioral issues, I found Dogs of Course, a dog trainers school to learn about positive reinforcement dog training. That changed everything for Minnie and me in many ways. She turned around a lot and I learned so much from her. She was a determined, demanding and the funniest of all dogs that I’ve ever known. I miss her every day.
