Elizabeth Shore

I attribute my success to the people in my life that have had my back. My parents, especially - I'm lucky, I'm very lucky. My parents, I'm an only child, and my parents have been nothing but supportive my entire life. My dad is the one who was the animal lover when I was a kid. He was the one that would take me to the pet store every week and we'd play with puppies, to the aquarium, and he would teach me all the animal things. My mom just being there for me, supporting me, no matter what my choices are. And my boyfriend - he's the reason that I was actually able to start the business, because when I moved in with him, I moved out of the area that I had been living and gave up my job. And he told me that I needed a chance to be able to do this and see if I could make a go of it, and he would do the supporting, he would pay the bills and not to worry about it. So I've been able to do this because of him.

Honestly, the most important and simplest advice has been don't give up. Because, especially in owning a company, it's very easy to get overwhelmed and feel like it's just too much. You know, the ideas that I have and people that I've talked to are so on board with what I want to do and where I want to take it. They feel like it's something that's missing in society and could be a fantastic idea that everybody would be interested in, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty of what owning a company really is, it's a lot, especially for one person. So, you know, just making sure you are taking one step at a time, making sure you feel comfortable in the decisions that you're making, and just continuing to make progress, even if it's a little bit every day.

Don't get intimidated. It is still a very male-dominated industry, and a lot - I'm not gonna say all, but a good majority of the male trainers are, I'm not gonna say misogynistic, but they definitely think they know better and can do better than a lot of women. So it is quite easy to get intimidated. It's funny, because you know that icky feeling when you go to like a used car lot and they're on you the minute you walk in, trying to sell, sell, sell? That's the personality of most male dog trainers.

The opportunities are there, especially here in Florida. Florida's continuing to grow, so the amount of people, the amount of dogs is going to continue to be there for the ability to do training. I think people need to kind of look outside their little box of what training is - it's not just classes or private sessions, it's life. Making sure you're taking the opportunity to do training, even with your clients, go places, do things that are unexpected, because that's gonna open a whole new avenue in how you train and what you train for. As far as limitations, I think a lot of people are stuck in a box, especially with the way they train. I 100% advocate for positive first, make everything as 100% positive as you possibly can, but again, they're children that never grow up. If a child doesn't know how to eat with a fork, you're not going to just expect them to learn on their own - you're going to put the fork in their hand, you're going to mold your hand around theirs and teach them how to use it. And that's not a bad thing. I think with this quote-unquote positive-only mindset that the dog training industry is leaning towards is becoming a hindrance rather than a help when it comes to not just teaching positive behaviors, but expectations for the dogs, because it's not fair to them that you're getting frustrated because they're not doing something that they don't know how to do, but you just expect them to figure it out.

Number one is honesty. I don't care if I'm not gonna like the answer, I wanna know the truth, professionally and personally. You know, if a trainer comes to me and says, well, I had a lesson with this client and they weren't happy, I would rather know that from my employees than to hear it from the client. That way I know that they understood that there was an issue, whether they caused the issue or it could be they just didn't jive personality-wise. But I want to hear the good and the bad from everybody in my life. So honesty is definitely number one.