I never expected my first dog training conference to take me back to where I went to college.

Clicker Expo 2026 was held in Tarrytown, New York, the same town where I spent my early twenties as a theatre major at Marymount College. Back then, I was studying performance and storytelling. I had no idea that decades later I’d be returning as a dog trainer, sitting in a ballroom with some of the most respected names in humane, science-based dog training.

Life is funny like that.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t spend much time exploring Tarrytown this trip. I did manage to sneak out for pastitsio at Lefteris, a Greek restaurant I’ve loved since my college days, and grabbed Szechuan fried wontons from a little place on Main Street that hasn’t changed a bit. But mostly I stayed planted at the conference. And after ten years of living in the Pacific Northwest, I’ve apparently become enough of a coffee snob that the local options were a real challenge. It confirmed something I already suspected: I’m a PNW person now. I’m home.

But I digress. Let’s talk about the three days that actually changed how I work.

Why I Went

This was my first dog training conference of any kind. I went in with a few specific goals. As a trainer serving families in Lynnwood, Edmonds, Bothell, Marysville, Mountlake Terrace, and the surrounding Snohomish County area, I’m always looking for practical tools I can bring directly into my work with clients. I wanted sessions that would help me with the dogs I’m seeing right now: teenage dogs who get overly excited around other dogs, fearful dogs struggling with busy suburban environments, and families trying to do right by their pets on a tight budget.

I also came with bigger goals. I’m writing a book on puppy blues and working on a podcast (spoiler!), and I wanted to connect with other trainers and organizations doing meaningful work in this space.

And maybe most importantly, I wanted to finally meet my mentor in person.

Meeting My Mentor

I’ve learned so much from Pet Harmony’s PETPro program, and my mentor there was Emily Strong, a well-known animal behavior consultant and author. The program is entirely virtual, so Clicker Expo was the first time we were actually in the same room. That alone would have made the trip worth it.

Emily presented a session on DIY enrichment that immediately got my wheels turning. The big idea was simple: before you go out and buy anything, just watch your dog. What are they already doing? Are they drawn to something? What do they seem to get out of it?

A dog who shreds every cardboard box they find needs to shred something. Dogs who dig up the yard need to dig somewhere. A dog who spends twenty minutes sniffing one patch of grass needs more time to use their nose. Once you understand what your dog is actually looking for, you can meet that need with things you already have around the house, like cardboard tubes, muffin tins, and crinkled paper bags filled with kibble. Enrichment doesn’t have to be expensive. It has to actually match your dog.

Emily has done this work with animal shelters that had no budget at all, building enrichment programs by running trash drives from local businesses and hosting toy-building workshops with volunteers. Dogs got what they needed. Communities got involved. And the people caring for those animals began thinking about enrichment in a completely different way.

I want to bring that same spirit here. I’m working toward a community event at The Friendly Bark in Lynnwood, where families can come in, build enrichment toys from donated materials, and have half of what they make go directly to dogs at the Everett Animal Shelter. More on that as it comes together.

Emily also attended a roundtable about Practical Approaches to Cooperative Care on Saturday, and we spent time talking between sessions, including one conversation that genuinely challenged me.

The Moment That Humbled Me

On Saturday afternoon, I attended a panel on cooperative care. That’s the practice of teaching dogs to voluntarily participate in things like grooming, nail trims, and vet visits, rather than being held down or forced through them. It’s something I focus on a lot in my work, especially since local vets like the wonderful team at Kindness Animal Clinic in Monroe regularly refer clients to me when their dogs are really struggling with handling.

So when a panelist raised the idea that cooperative care training isn’t necessarily the right approach for every client, I pushed back internally. It sat with me all day.

Later, I talked it through with Emily. And she challenged me to look at something I hadn’t considered: my own blind spot.

She pointed out that teaching cooperative care at home, working through it patiently, step by step, takes time, consistency, and a certain level of energy that not every family has. For some clients, the most compassionate answer is to get the dog to a groomer now, even if that means shaving them down, so the dog is comfortable and no longer in discomfort. Then we build better routines going forward from a fresh start.

I’m working through exactly this kind of situation right now. The dog came to me matted. The client was able to get them to a groomer, and now we’re building maintenance habits from a place of comfort rather than urgency. Emily’s perspective helped me see that adapting the plan to what the client can actually do isn’t settling; it’s good training.

It reminded me of something I keep relearning: I tend to get caught up in the ideal solution and lose sight of what’s actually practical for the family in front of me. This was a good, grounding reminder.

Sessions That Stood Out

Over the three days, I attended a packed schedule of talks. Here’s what I took away from each one, in plain English.

Breaking Down Choice and Control — Chirag Patel

This was the first big session of the conference, and it set the tone for everything that followed. Patel talked about what it really means to give a dog a choice, and it’s more nuanced than it sounds.

A dog has a genuine choice when there are at least two real options available to them. When there’s only one path forward, that’s not really a choice, even if it looks like one from the outside. This matters for how we set up training. If your dog feels like they have no real options in a situation, their stress goes up, and their ability to learn goes down. When they feel like they have some say in what’s happening, the whole dynamic changes. I think about this a lot when structuring sessions with clients.

Pattern Games — Ran Courant-Morgan and Stephanie Keesey-Phelan

I’ll be honest here: this one covered ground I already knew well. But if you’re new to training, here’s why pattern games matter for your dog.

A pattern game is exactly what it sounds like: a short, predictable sequence of movement that you and your dog do together. Walk here, stop, treat. Walk there, turn, treat. Repeat. The repetition is the whole point. Predictability is genuinely calming for a dog’s brain. When the world around them feels chaotic like when a strange dog appears, a car backfires, a kid runs by, having a familiar pattern to fall back on gives them something solid to focus on. It’s like a reset button you can use on a walk.

Backstage Pass: Coaching Non-Dog Trainers

This one was a panel of some big names in the training world: Ken Ramirez, Chirag Patel, Aaron Clayton, Alexandra Kurland, and Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz, and the focus was on how to coach people, not just dogs.

Watching Chirag Patel work with handlers at different skill levels in real time was fascinating. The throughline was this: give people only what they need for the very next step. Don’t overwhelm them with everything at once. That’s something I try to practice with every client, and seeing it modeled by trainers at this level was a good reminder of why it matters.

How To Teach a Group Tricks Class — Melissa Millett

The first thirty minutes of this session were exactly what I needed. I’m planning a photo posing workshop this summer, teaching dogs to hold cute poses on cue for photos, and Melissa’s approach to structuring a class gave me the framework I was looking for.

Her system for teaching any new behavior is simple: first, show people what the finished behavior looks like with a demo dog. Then, briefly explain any important notes, like what size dog it works best for. Then give only the instructions for step one, right before they practice it. Five reps, then stop. Don’t overwhelm people with step three when they’re still on step one. Less information at the right moment is more useful than a lot of information all at once. I’m building my summer workshop around this exact approach.

Freeing Up the Operant — Rick Hester

This session was developed by Rick Hester and Dr. Susan Friedman, whose work I reference constantly, and it drew on their experience working with animals in zoos.

The core idea: structured training sessions are valuable, but they only make up a small part of your dog’s day. What’s your dog doing with the rest of their time? If the answer is sleeping, pacing, or getting into things they shouldn’t, that’s a signal that the environment isn’t giving them enough to do in a meaningful way.

Dogs need to be able to make choices throughout their day. To start behaviors on their own. Explore. To have some control over what happens to them. When those opportunities aren’t built into the environment, dogs create their own, usually involving your couch cushions or your trash can. This session gave me a new way to talk with clients during intake about how their home is set up for their dog, not just what behaviors they want to train.

Dogs in the City — Bobbie Bhambree

This was one of the most immediately relevant talks of the weekend for the families I work with in Snohomish County.

Bobbie’s central point: living in a busy suburban area is genuinely hard on dogs. Not in a dramatic way but in a quiet, cumulative way. Every time a dog navigates a crowded parking lot, hears a loud truck, gets startled by a cyclist rounding a corner, or has to walk past a barking dog behind a fence, their nervous system is at work. And most dogs never get a real break from it. They’re essentially on alert all the time.

This is especially true right now in areas like Marysville, Monroe, and Lake Stevens, where growth has been fast and furious. Roads that used to be quiet aren’t quiet anymore. New construction brings new sounds. More people mean more unpredictable encounters on every walk.

When a dog barks, lunges, or shuts down on a walk, it’s easy to read that as a training problem. But often it’s a dog who is already carrying too much, and one more thing pushes them over the edge. The goal isn’t to train the dog to be perfectly calm in every situation. That’s not realistic or fair. The goal is for a dog to get through their day without constantly feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes that means adjusting your route. Perhaps we choose to skip the busy trail on weekends. Sometimes it means working with a trainer to figure out what your specific dog needs to feel safer.

Enrichment on a Budget — Emily Strong

More Emily, and more of the same practical approach I love about her work. The key takeaway for working with real families: before you recommend anything, ask what the person can actually offer: time or money, and how much of either. Then ask what feels fun to them. An enrichment plan nobody follows helps nobody.

Assent and Negative Reinforcement and the Matching Law — Rick Hester

The title of this one sounds technical, but the practical takeaway is something every dog owner can use.

Assent basically means your dog’s ongoing “yes” and what that looks like. The body language and behavior that tells you they’re okay with what’s happening and willing to keep going. Loose body, soft face, moving toward you rather than away. The opposite, pulling back, freezing, yawning suddenly, turning away, is your dog saying “I need a break” or “this is too much.”

Here’s the part that surprises people: when you consistently honor that “no” meaning, when you stop what you’re doing the moment your dog shows they’re uncomfortable, something unexpected happens over time. The dog actually becomes more willing to participate, not less. Because they trust that the exit is always available, they don’t feel the need to use it as often. That’s not a trick. That’s just how trust works.

This session used examples from zoo animal training, teaching animals to voluntarily participate in blood draws, vaccinations, and other medical procedures, and the parallel to everyday pet care was clear. The same principles apply whether you’re training a giraffe or teaching your dog to tolerate nail trims.

Building Resilience — Bobbie Bhambree

This session was directly about why some dogs seem stuck even when their owners are doing everything right.

Counterconditioning is a tool trainers use to help dogs feel better about things that scare them. You pair the scary thing with something the dog loves, like really good treats, over and over until the scary thing stops feeling so scary. It works. But it’s not always enough on its own.

What Bobbie argued, and what rang very true to me, is that a dog needs to have enough capacity to cope before the learning can really stick. Think of it like a bucket. Every stressful thing that happens fills the bucket a little. A dog whose bucket is always nearly full has very little room left before they overflow. Even small things can push them over.

Building resilience means actively working to lower that water level through better sleep and rest, more genuine downtime, reducing unnecessary stress, and creating more moments where the dog feels safe and in control. When you do that alongside the counterconditioning work, progress starts to happen faster and hold better.

For clients who tell me, “We’ve been working on this forever, and nothing is changing,” this is usually where I want to look first.

Aggression Roundtable — Multiple Speakers

I attended this one more for personal reasons than for professional ones. My own dog Cha-cha is afraid of other dogs, and when she’s scared, she goes on the offensive. I’m not a specialist in serious aggression cases, and my insurance doesn’t allow me to work with dogs who have a bite history. But I can and do work with reactive dogs, dogs who bark, lunge, or overreact before things escalate.

What this panel gave me was empathy, and also an important reminder. Not every dog is going to be social. Not every dog will be able to go to the dog park or walk calmly past other dogs on the street. And that’s okay. Helping a family build a good, happy life with a dog who has limits is meaningful work. It doesn’t mean the dog failed or that the owner failed. It means we found a life that actually works for that individual dog.

The Bigger Picture

Beyond the sessions, I came home with some relationships and conversations that feel significant.

I got to talk with Dogwise, a well-known publisher in the dog training world, about my book on puppy blues. At lunch, I ran into Kelly from FluentPet, who remembered me. We talked about partnering on a webinar around that topic. I exchanged contact information with trainers and consultants who could be great podcast guests down the road.

And someone recognized me from Instagram. I won’t pretend that didn’t make my whole weekend.

What I’m Actually Doing Differently

The most concrete thing I’m bringing back into my classes is a game called Super Bowls.

Here’s how it works in plain terms: you set up a few food bowls or targets around a space. Your dog gets to decide when they’re ready to move to the next one. They signal you, and then you walk together to the next spot. The dog controls the pace. You control the path.

It sounds simple, but it’s really powerful for adolescent dogs, who are six to eighteen months old, who get overstimulated around other dogs in a group class setting. The game’s predictable structure helps their brain calm down enough to actually learn. And because the dog is making the decisions about when to move, they feel less pressured and more confident. I’m adding this to my classes starting now, especially for the teenage dogs who are a handful.

I’m also actively working toward that community enrichment event at The Friendly Bark. And I’m keeping Emily’s reminder close: always start with what the family can actually do, not with the ideal plan in my head.

If you’re a dog owner in Lynnwood, Edmonds, Bothell, Marysville, Mountlake Terrace, Monroe, Lake Stevens, Mukilteo, or anywhere in Snohomish County and you want to work with a trainer who keeps learning and brings it back to your real life with your real dog, I’d love to connect.