About Us
Support for You and Your Great Dogs
Marra & Dog Training Help
Beginnings
Founder and Senior Facilitator, Marra Apgar, has been an animal enthusiast since childhood. In her first business, Raptor Presentations, she trained birds of prey as educational ambassadors.
Her first "own" dog challenged her to deepen her training knowledge, and she found herself running training classes - after a few years of mentoring and learning!
Marra has owned and operated Dog Training Help since 2016.
What We're About
Having worked with and trained wild birds, and having a science background, reward-based, fear-free training systems were Marra's choice.
Our focus is in supporting those people in our community who aspire to have brilliant companion dogs.
We are here to support you in navigating through your challenges, as you educate your dream dogs, using fear free training.
Our Focus
We offer manners training and socialisation classes for all ages and breeds of dogs.
We pride ourselves on Puppy and Canine Hoopers classes that are fun and informative.
Dog Training Help has created a unique, full featured fear-free snake avoidance training program. Our emphasis is on quality training that does not compromise your dog's psychological well-being.
Other Animals? No Problem!
Good animal training transcends species. Marra has extensive experience with wild birds. She's also trained domestic birds, cats and even dabbled with a horse or two. And LOTS of humans. Marra's professional learning is not just dog centred. The cross-pollination of ideas that comes from a huge variety of animals and situations helps to "think outside the box" so that our training is client centred, no matter what species.
This means that if your household is multi-species, your "others" will be included in any behaviour change efforts!
Training Style & Compatibility
I teach and use "clicker training" and focus on Positive Reinforcement as the driver of all training. If you want to reward your dog into being good, this is the best training method to adopt. It is highly effective in removing unwanted behaviour without damaging your dog's other, good behaviour.
If you have used traditional or "balanced" dog training in the past, I am happy to work with you to transition to training that will build your dog's confidence and trust. I do not allow the use of pinch, prong, slip, or electric collars, shouting, hissing, making loud noises or striking during training.These can be highly effective and minimally damaging when used by a high level professional, but often cause severe problems in the hands of regular dog people.
My training is inspired by and compatible with these well known and awesome trainers (in no particular order):
Karen Pryor, Ken Ramirez, Ian Dunbar, Leslie McDevitt, Grisha Stewart, Emily Larlham (Kikopup), Zak George, Susan Garrett, Terry Ryan, Shirley M. Chong, Bob Bailey, Susan Friedman, Steve Martin.. and so many more!
About the Business
Dog Training Help is a Registered Business Name. It is a Sole Trader Business, that is not registered for GST.
Our ABN is:41202286336.
