A U D R A   W H E E L E R

Audra has always been an avid animal lover and outdoorsman. She spent her youth growing up on a farm in North Georgia. Her adolescent years were spent developing her skills with animals and animal behavior. Her earliest experiences with training were with Off-the-track thoroughbreds, which she would retrain as Hunter Jumpers and find forever homes for. She also rode competitively in Hunter Jumpers on her local IEA team. In addition to training horses, she is also a chicken enthusiast and spent years breeding specialty heritage breed chickens, at one point having a flock consisting of over 80 birds.

 

Her experience with and love for animals provided her with an opportunity to work for herself as a pet sitter throughout her teenage years and it was through her work that she discovered her true calling, training dogs! Her local reputation was that of a sitter who was willing to work with owners of especially large or unruly dogs. This is how she acquired her very first training clients. Starting off specializing in pushy and unruly dogs had its challenges but they were far outweighed by the satisfaction from helping pet parents who felt they had nowhere else to turn. In addition to pet sitting and training of client dogs, she also rescued, rehabbed, trained, and found forever homes for over 15 dogs in need between 2016 and 2018. At one time having 6 foster dogs in her home all at once!

 

In early 2019, she landed a job as a trainer at a big box store by submitting videos of herself training her personal dog, a now 5 year old German Shepherd. She spent a year teaching group classes and private lessons under an exclusively positive reinforcement curriculum. While it was a great learning experience, she often had clients asking for more comprehensive and in depth training that is best achieved through balanced methods. This inspired her to expand her knowledge and experience by beginning to search for a job that could continue her education beyond only positive reinforcement, so that she could provide pet parents with the skills they were searching for. After some months off to have her son, she found a job at a reputable balanced training facility training under a world class trainer for both Schutzhund and Pet dog training (as well as dabbling in barn hunt and dock diving). 

 

She spent a year training and learning from her mentor, getting hands-on experience training dozens of dogs for advanced off-leash obedience in the 4 and 6 week board and train programs, assisting with aggression and reactivity cases, as well as advancing her personal dog in his sport training. The convenience of working at an expansive facility was undeniable but after a year of watching dogs take days just to become comfortable in their new surroundings, she began to see the potential benefits of boarding and training dogs in a home setting.

 

This led her to begin her career with Devil Dog Training. Training in a home setting allows her to commit time to her training dogs 24/7 while they are with her and is a less stressful experience because they are in an environment that is more familiar to them.