Gitta Vaughn has always loved animals and grew up with horses. At the age of 10 she started training horses and in 1984 her first dog triggered her interest in dog training. After training at various dog training clubs and volunteering at a local shelter for several years, she decided to change to the professional dog training career in 1994. Today she has over 36 years working with animals and their owners.

***image1***Starting out with traditional training methods a particularly challenging horse prompted her to research less aversive training methods. This search led to far more modern and humane training methods like positive reinforcement training lure and reward training and mainly operant conditioning (often referred to as clicker training). These modern and animal-friendly methods focus on building and maintaining the animal-human relationship based on trust and respect instead of fear, intimidation and pain.

More and more owners don’t want to inflict pain on their companion animals, yet we are in a society hooked on the “quick fix” of fads and gimmicks for all our problems and challenges. From weight loss to dog training we want quick, effortless and guaranteed results. Unfortunately our companion animals do not come equipped with programmable buttons and on/off switches to fit our often busy and chaotic lifestyles.

Gitta believes people need to learn to accept animals as they are and not as the fairy tale creatures of movies or furry child replacements. Owners need to respect and appreciate the fundamental difference between humans and companion animals. People need to accept the responsibility of owning an animal and teaching it how to behave in a foreign world. Our world. People need to understand basic dog behavior, how dogs learn and communicate in order for them to train their dogs successfully.

***image2***Gitta is the only graduate in Texas of the prestigious Purdue University’s “DOGS! Principles and Techniques of Behavior Modification” course. Continuing education through networking with trainers all over the world, workshops, seminars and educational conferences enable her to work with animals as whole beings.

Gitta’s background include Certified Master Trainer, Police Patrol and Detector Dog Trainer, contributing editor for the German online dog magazine “Hundezeitung”, consultant for “STOP”, a training and evaluation program for personal protection and object protection dogs based in Germany, contributing author for the German dog training book “Verstaendnis fuer Hunde” by Rainer Brinks, Ph.D.

Gitta owns Leading Edge Dog Training, LLC based in San Antonio, TX focusing on private and semi-private in-home lessons, pre-purchase counseling, phone consultations and workshops. She teaches and coaches owners to understand and train their dogs using humane, modern and dog-friendly methods.

She is also a distributor for Transfer Factor, the most powerful and all natural immune support product for humans and animals available today. Transfer Factor is one of the few nutritional products listed in the Physician Desk Reference. The Physician Desk Reference is considered the standard prescription and non-prescription drugs reference in the US and can be found in practically every doctor’s office, hospital and pharmacy.

For more information go to www.gittavaughn.com

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