SERVICING NEW JERSEY

Meet Your Trainer:

Erin Whelan

· CPDT-KA, CSAP-BC

Having spent a decade as a chronically underemployed freelance musician, Erin was inspired to become a dog trainer when she adopted her dog Oliver. The relationship the two formed through rewards-based training brought them closer together and now, Erin works to help other human-dog teams find the same joy. Erin seeks to improve inter-species communication and loves coaching her clients on how to use their “trainer brain” to find useful training scenarios in their everyday environment. She specializes in addressing fear, anxiety, aggression, leash reactivity, resource guarding, and cooperative care. When Erin is not teaching your dog how to ride a skateboard, you can find her horizontal on the couch with her own dog Oliver who still inspires her everyday.

Train with Erin

Learn more about your trainer

Erin’s Profile

Education and Certificates:

SFTD-CPT, School for The Dogs - Certified Professional Trainer

CPDT-KA, Certified Professional Dog Trainer - Knowledge Assessed

CSAP-BC, Certified Separation Anxiety Behavior Consultant

Continuing Education:

Clicker Expo LIVE 2020

Clicker Expo LIVE 2021

IAABC Lemonade Conference 2021

IAABC Lemonade Conference 2022

Cooperative Care: Husbandry At Home w/ Laura Monaco Torelli May 2023

Our training practices are reward-based and rooted in science.

We adhere to LIMA (least intrusive, minimally aversive) and force-free principles. This means that we do not use ‘aversives’ or ‘corrections’- techniques that cause fear, pain, and frustration in dogs. We aim to educate clients and provide them with the stepping stones for behavior change so that clients can walk away from our training experience empowered to continue on their own.

Why Our Credentials Matter

Anyone can call themselves a dog trainer, so we make sure ours are visible: every trainer on our team is certified through a nationally recognized certification program, meaning our expertise has been independently verified. We also stay current through ongoing continuing education, like conferences and coursework, so the guidance you get is always rooted in the latest canine science.

CLIENT STORIES

What our clients say.

"

Erin is amazing at what she does! You can tell right away how much she cares about dogs, and it really comes through in her training approach. I especially appreciate her focus on training us (not just our dog), so we feel confident and equipped to handle an easily overstimulated adolescent pup. She gave us so many tools and resources to set us up for success, plus incredibly detailed notes after each session that have helped us stay on track. We've seen great progress since working with Erin. Highly recommend!

-Joe’s Guardian

"

I’ve been working with Erin for a few months now and have had really great results with my 2 dogs - one of whom was impossible to even walk he was pulling so much.

Erin helped me figure out how to communicate with him better so he understood what I wanted from him using only positive reinforcement techniques which I didn’t really think was possible. The other one has a very high prey drive and we’re steadily making progress to lessen the behaviors that are challenging.

Really recommend Erin at Paws for Thought for all your dog training challenges!

-Atom’s Guardian

"

We’ve been working closely with Erin since November 2022, just a week after bringing Virgil home. He’s our first puppy and, while he’s an absolute love bug, he’s also got a lot of Big Feelings that have translated into some negative behaviours like reactivity. Erin’s been an incredible partner in helping us understand him and how to set him up for success, and in addition to teaching Virgil so many things, has also taught us the best way to manage him and help him have the happiest life. She’s extremely thoughtful and dedicated, and works really hard to adjust her training programs and approach to each dog and their individual quirks.

-Virgil’s Guardian