Dan Perata

Dan Perata is a San Francisco original; someone who has always bucked the traditional conventional wisdom. A third-generation native of the city, Dan has always had a natural rapport with all animals, dogs in particular. He's been working with them since he was a teen! He's been honing and perfecting his methods ever since, sometimes in the most fascinating of places.Dan began working with and observing dogs as a boy around his grandfather's hunting dogs. He had no interest in training the dogs using shock collars and food bribes. He decided to use love, praise and compassion as the reward and found it to be a more effective alternative. The wisdom of that philosophy was confirmed when Dan was a clown for Ringling Brothers Circus. True story! He observed and became close with the legendary animal Trainer Gunther Gebel. Gebel trained lions, leopards, elephants and a myriad of animals in extremely dangerous environments, armed with nothing but his love of the animals, knowledge and confidence. Gebel based his training style on mutual respect for the animals. He completely revolutionized animal training across the globe. Brute force and fear-based training was replaced by learned commands and mutual respect. Gunther‚'s influence and the combination of personal experience developed the philosophy that Dan embodies and is part of the guiding principal at DPT.Dan is known for his outspokenness, humor and straight-shooting manner--a manner that the dogs love (but you are not required to), because he radiates the energy of consistency and resoluteness that dogs naturally respond to. He's also an avid outdoorsman whose love of animals knows no bounds. When you work with Dan, you're working with an original thinker with the courage to break with worn out training paradigms to create a style of dog training that is infinitely more compassionate, forward thinking and effective. (And fun!)