About Cassandra Greve

Role: Group Class Trainer

Certifications:

  • Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA, 2017)
  • Certified Trick Dog Instructor (CTDI, 2024)

Specialties:

  • Foundational Training (‘Basic Obedience’)
  • Tricks Training

Other Skills:

  • Recreational Agility
  • Camera Skills

Influences: Cassandra draws inspiration from renowned trainers like Hannah Brannigan, Sara Brueske, Kathy Sdao, and Susan Garrett. Their expertise and methods have significantly shaped her approach to dog training.

Experience: Cassandra began her professional dog training journey in 2014. With a background of working with animals since she was 15, she discovered her passion for training while working at a training-based dog daycare and boarding facility. Witnessing the profound impact training had on people’s lives and their relationships with their dogs solidified her desire to pursue a career in this field.

Continuing Education: To stay current in her field, Cassandra reads books, attends seminars and conferences (both in-person and online), and has recently started exploring podcasts. Her commitment to continuous learning ensures she remains at the forefront of modern training techniques and theories.

Background: Cassandra’s diverse experience includes working as a film trainer, where she trained not only dogs but also cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, and rats. She has even trained dolphins and sea lions, showcasing her versatility and broad range of skills. Cassandra loves teaching tricks, as it adds an element of fun to training sessions and strengthens the bond between dogs and their owners.

 

Teaching Philosophy:

Cassandra’s favorite part of teaching is fostering relationship building between clients and their dogs. She cherishes the “lightbulb moments” when clients gain new insights and feel empowered to continue their training journey with enthusiasm and confidence. 

Expertise: Cassandra excels at adapting to client needs while maintaining positive training methods. She has a talent for making technical theories understandable and ensuring that training sessions are fun for both dogs and their owners. Her adaptable and engaging approach helps clients achieve their training goals efficiently.

Coaching Style: Cassandra loves to learn what a client’s goals are. She holds strongly to the belief that all good relationships start with clear communication, and she will do whatever she can to help the human-dog relationship be as strong as possible.

Cassandra is great for those teams looking for a diplomatic coach!

Personal Interests

Outside of dog training, Cassandra has a rich background in theatre and animation, with a particular love for musicals. She loves all things Disney, which now includes Marvel and Star Wars, though Batman holds a special place in her heart. Being an extrovert, she takes every opportunity she can to attend comic cons and fan expos dressed as her favourite characters, and jumps on every opportunity to be in front of the camera for a photoshoot.

An avid Halloween fan, Cassandra also enjoys all things spooky. You can often find her hanging out in a pumpkin patch, carving various fruits, and her love of dressing up has transitioned onto her dogs who have a tickle trunk full of costumes themselves.

Additionally Cassandra enjoys crafty activities like painting and wood burning, allowing her to bring a creative flair to everything she does. When not dressing up or being creative, you can find her with her nose in a book to relax; fantasy, sci fi, and self help being her favourites.

Cassandra’s Dogs 

Sprocket

The newest addition to Cassandra’s dog tribe is Sprocket, the young poodle papillon mix.

A gentle soul, Sprocket is Cassandra’s first experience with a highly sensitive dog and though he is very sweet, there is an adolescent sass to him. She is finding herself needing to adjust her approach and focus on errorless learning for the little dog with big feelings as his frustration tolerance is quite low. He is also teaching her the importance of training cooperative care as his coat is very high maintenance and she is committed to making sure it is managed in a stress free way.

Dubbed “Sprocket the Rocket,” this little guy is starting his helper dog career early and can often be found racing around with other dogs, or anyone who will chase him. He quickly loses his desire for food rewards in distracting environments so Cassandra is working on learning alternative reward preferences and is also focusing on learning his thresholds as well.  

 

Although his interest in food fades quickly around more reinforcing things, Sprocket very much prefers working for his food. He will often graze or skip meals entirely when fed from a bowl however will train with Cassandra on tricks or new skills for the same kibble, and will finish every meal when fed from a puzzle ball or snuffle mat.

 

Eliza

Eliza (Ellie) is a long haired, tri-colored corgi who came to Cassandra at 7 months old. Currently Cassandra’s first, and only, purebred and female dog, Eliza loves zooming through life with endless energy, and tends to act first and think later.

Being that she was a little bit older when she came around, Ellie comes with some noise sensitivities and resource guarding tendencies that Cassandra is currently working through. 

One of Ellie’s favourite things to do is play fetch, and for the first number of weeks Cassandra used that as her primary reinforcer while working on training exercises. Though Eliza loves working for food rewards now, this was a great lesson for Cassandra in learning how to find and use alternative reinforcers when food isn’t as appealing. 

Eliza is proving herself to be a wonderful model and she is working hard on building up her tricks profile so she can use them in her photoshoots with Extraordinary Canines. 

Gone but not forgotten 

Archer

Archer, the bernese lab mix, came to Cassandra around the same time she became a dog trainer, his first home giving feedback that he was aggressive. This was Cassandra’s first experience with how disconnected a relationship between human and dog could be as the puppy that came to her was undersocialized sure, but also very food motivated and wanted to please. This made him a wonderful training partner, though at 6 months he was scared of everything due to his lack of socialization. Cassandra put a lot of time into training him in new environments and around new people, and while Archer never lost his default nervousness of new things, he was resilient and quickly able to check out the scary thing and overcome his fear of it. 

Cassandra quickly learned that containing Archer’s zest for life was not something that could be done and instead learned to channel his energies into tricks by capturing all the goofy behaviours he would present. A bouncy boy, Archer became the ideal trick dog and thus introduced Cassandra to her love of tricks and the relationship building that came along with them. 

Although not fully dog social as an adult, Archer was incredibly dog tolerant and spent many years being a role model / helper dog for the nervous and socially awkward dogs coming through dog daycare or working with Cassandra on their reactivity. He was equally as patient with children and taught many kids that big dogs are not scary with his gentle ways. 

 

Archer loved to train and show off his fancy tricks, almost as much as he loved to eat. The only thing he loved almost as much as food was cuddling and always wanted to be touching you. That would look like him sitting on your feet, or leaning against your legs, and Cassandra has many photos of him through the years laying next to her with his leg draped across her in a cuddle. Not an overly cuddly person herself, Archer taught Cassandra how to meet a dog’s needs even if they don’t align with yours and now his cuddles are one of the things she misses most. 

 

Cash

Mr Cash was the dog that started it all for Cassandra. While she always had pets growing up, Cash was her first dog as an adult, and traveled all over Western Canada and the United States with her. He was there for the start of her training journey, though wasn’t the cause of it, and could often be found pretending he didn’t know anything when other people were trying to train him. He was a pro at navigating dog-dog interactions, staying fully dog social until the end of his days, and would often help Cassandra out in her times working at dog daycares.

A mutt through and through, Mr Cash could always be relied on to find anything remotely edible whether it was loose leaf tea that was sent as a Christmas present, food locked in an airtight container that he would help himself to, or snacks on shelves you forgot were there. For a dog so motivated to find food, he was notorious for skipping meals, and Cassandra would often have to add tasty things to his meals in order to get him to eat.

Cash was a senior dog by the time Cassandra became a dog trainer, and he never stopped surprising her by his ability to learn new tricks and skills. He taught her that a dog is never too old to learn, but also how to be flexible with your criteria to account for the limits of training a senior dog.