The Association for Pet Dog Trainers, a nationally recognized group with over 5,000 members worldwide has awarded The Service Dog Academy in the National Train your Dog Month campaign with The Most Creative Community Event! We certainly made a scene in downtown Seattle’s Westlake Park when, to the tune of “Walking The Dog” by Rufus Thomas, 14 handlers and their positively trained dogs simultaneously demonstrated basic skills taught in most dog training classes. The first ever positively trained flash mob (that we know of) managed to win over the APDT and make the news!

As a community event, and as a way to spread the word on the power of positive training, we feel it was a huge success! Check out the full press on the event here. Winning this award is an exciting addition to something we are already very proud of and hope to continue more events like these in the future!

In more great news, The Service Dog Academy was recently visited by Examiner reporter Prescott Breeden. He talked with Mary McNeight about the expanding world of service dogs, and diabetic alert training – which is now being offered at the studio! We are so excited to be featured in the Seattle Examiner, and to share our upcoming ventures and training opportunities with the community. Check out the recently published article here.