Hi, I am Dianne Bevand. I first came to Good as Gold with my Sheltie Teddy, who was reactive to both people and dogs. After our assessment, it was recommended in Teddy‘s case, agility would be very helpful to build Teddy’s trust in the world around him. Using Agility’s novel situations to teach Teddy that scary things could be a whole lot of fun. As well Nancy Hatch gave me extremely successful strategies to work with Teddy’s reactiveness to people and dogs. Today I am happy to say that since we implemented those strategies, Teddy can walk calmly among dogs and people. Even in the close quarters at Agility trials my boy is super awesome. And now after these years, Teddy remains a very well-balanced boy. Teddy loves agility and the longer we came, the more I wanted to get involved and help with the organization. I have become the administrative assistant. I’m available to help other students fill out paperwork or register for competitions, and to navigate various competitive organizations. I attend meetings and help plan and coordinate special events at Good As Gold, it makes my day to contribute in these ways.
My second dog, a Havanese has trained at Good as Gold and is now a certified therapy dog through Partner Dogs of Canada Inc. We go to schools, hospice, workplaces etc.
I have made friends and met many amazing people through Good as Gold – it is like a big family who cheer each other on. We all want the dogs to do well!
