Jean Keesler

Jean has been providing dog walking and pet care services in Brooklyn, NY since 2005. She grew up in the Pacific Northwest with a wily Siberian Husky and a variety of rescue cats that she kept bringing home. Jean moved to Brooklyn, studied Architecture at Pratt Institute and has a background in visual and graphic arts, however she has always had an interest in animals and science from an early age. She became a dog walker while still studying at college and naturally worked very well with dogs that were reactive or fearful. Taking a special interest in being able to understand them better, learning about animal behavior became essential to working with many of these dogs which led to Jean studying and learning from other trainers.Jean started learning about dog training in 2010 with the late Gary Gross who created Dog Trainers of NYC with Victoria Stillwell. She also assisted with a pet project of his photographing senior dogs for a book and used her various skills from her art and design background to assist with photo editing for Gary. Later she studied dog training with Jenny Chun, Rikke Brogaard, and Viviane Arzoumanian, who are all very influential in furthering Jean's education in force-free, positive reinforcement dog training. Finding other trainers to learn from who also believe in an empathetic, compassionate and non-aversive approach to working with dogs was important to Jean. Jean's interest in animal behavior is not limited to dogs however, she has worked with cats and other small animals over the years. She enjoys clicker training and doing nosework with her cat L.C., a rescue kitty from the Rockaways. Jean loves taking dogs hiking, practicing predation substitute training, working on cooperative care behaviors, and doing tricks training with her clients. Building positive relationships with any animals she has worked with, whether it has been as a dog walker, pet sitter, groomer, or trainer, has been her goal and passion for over 18 years.