Em Beauprey came to School For The Dogs in 2017 when he was working as a vet tech and running his own dog walking business. He started out as an apprentice, and went on to build SFTD's walking program from scratch, and to helm our professional program. These days, when he isn't putting the finishing touches on Born To Behave, our forthcoming free and open-source course for aspiring professional dog trainers, Em can be found doing virtual training with puppies and walking his cat on the streets of Portland, OR. Em and Annie discuss a youth spent training dogs for conformation trials, why knowledgeable dog walkers are so valuable, cat training, and more. 

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Annie's 2005 NY Times article on part-time pets https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/fashion/sundaystyles/instant-best-friend-for-the-day.html

More on SFTD's Professional Program: https://www.schoolforthedogs.com/professional-dog-training-course/

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Partial Transcript:

Annie:

I am here with the wonderful, peerless Em Beauprey.  Em came to us as an apprentice. What was it? Gosh, four years ago

Em Beauprey:

That was…yeah, I think it was 2016, pretty sure. 27 to 2017.

Annie:

2017, 2016. Gosh, that is almost four years.

Em:

It’s, all my years in New York have been kind of just a big blur that involves a lot of dogs. So it’s hard for me to put it at a specific time.

Annie:

[laughs] Well, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you’re doing right now? As far as School for the Dogs goes.  And then we can maybe work backwards in time and talk about how you got to this point.

Em:

Yeah, so right now I have a couple of capacities with School for the Dogs. I am an associate trainer with School for the Dogs. So I am seeing clients. I am doing so exclusively virtually because, surprise, surprise, I am currently living in Portland, Oregon. So I am School for the Dogs I believe first fully remote trainer.   Fully remote by necessity trainer.

Annie:

To be clear, we would like to have you be doing actual sessions in Portland, but because of lockdown.

Em:

Because of the pandemic, right.  The eventual plan is for me to actually get some sessions on the ground and be able to do some more one-on-one training, which is great. Portland’s got a lovely dog training community and I’m hoping to get more involved in it once it’s safe to do so.

Annie:

And then School for the Dogs will be officially bi-coastal.

Em:

Yeah. We’re going to do School for the Dogs West. But then also I am, as a former member of the apprenticeship program, I have also taken on the job of managing the School for the Dogs apprenticeship program, which I did for the first time at the beginning of this year and has been extremely educational for me. And a really interesting experience.

Prior to that, I was doing some other program management.  This is the first time that I really had kind of a team of students. And we have had a fantastic team of apprentices this year. So it’s been really a pleasure to see them learn and grow.

Annie:

How would you describe the School for the Dogs apprenticeship program to those who don’t know about it?

Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcast

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