Ashleigh Lopez

Ashleigh was born in London, England and moved to Brooklyn, New York to live with her mother and 6 cats in their small studio apartment. It was here where she was raised to love all animals. Ashleigh's aunt also had 8 cats of her own and was constantly helping orphaned animals in the neighborhood, nursing them back to health in her backyard. Her grandmother was similar in nature having a consistent array of animals around and gifting Ashleigh books about dog breeds and animal encyclopedias. Ashleigh soon decided that it was just simply a part of her nature to be surrounded by animals in need. She felt, from a very young age, that it was her purpose to help animals in anyway she could.By 8 years old Ashleigh decided she was going to become a Veterinarian. Throughout the next ten years Ashleigh volunteered with various dog adoption organizations as well as help raise and find homes for many of the abandoned cats in her neighborhood. When she was a senior in high school she began a year long internship at an emergency veterinary hospital. She was so moved by her experience and excited to further her pursuit that she graduated and began studying to become a veterinary technician in college. After two years of study she sadly decided that euthanasia was not a topic she could manage. Nevertheless, the amount of knowledge she acquired during her years of education was immeasurable.In 2009 Ashleigh moved to San Francisco, California where she pursued a different teaching approach and turned her attention to working with children. The chance to work with humans as well as animals has always been equally as important to Ashleigh. Through her work with young children she was able to recognize the similarities between dogs and children with how they interpret and handle life's scenarios. Ashleigh feels a strong urge to show children how to interact properly with dogs and would like to create a project in the future where we are able to teach children how to train dogs themselves using only positive reinforcement.In 2015 Ashleigh moved to Los Angeles and soon after adopted a German Shorthaired Pointer mix puppy. After a very traumatic first experience at the vet Ashleigh was advised to "get the puppy proper training." Leaving very disgruntled, her first instinct was to hire a trainer, so she began her research. Karma Dog Training was her number one choice for training. Yet, instead of hiring a trainer she felt inspired to continue learning on her own through Karma's training approach of positive reinforcement.She continued to explore sites such as APDT.com and CCPDT.com. She watched a plethora of videos, and read books written by positive reinforcement trainers, all the while training her puppy in the process. About a month after adopting her puppy everything sort of "clicked" for Ashleigh and she had an "a-ha!" moment where she realized "she was supposed to be the trainer all along!" Soon she began taking an online "Dog Trainer Foundations" course by Karen Pryor. Once completing the 3 month program she then found a CCPDT certified trainer in her area and began apprenticing beneath him in aims to become certified.Ashleigh likes to keeps her training knowledge up to date by reading books by trainers such as Ian Dunbar, Karen Pryor, Victoria Stilwell and the like. She also enjoys attending seminars/webinars and lectures as well as continuing her education through various online courses/material.Ashleigh currently lives in Los Angeles and has an Australian Cattle Dog, a small Chihuahua, and two cats. She believes that a positive approach to training is the key to creating a symbiotic relationship with your dog and all animals. Ashleigh's focus is to help people see that we as humans have a responsibility and duty to our dogs to show them how to coexist with us. She believes that a truly harmonious relationship is possible and wants to help facilitate that between man and dog.