There may come a time in just about every pet-guardian’s life where he or she could use some assistance with their canine (or even feline)—whether it be a training issue or a behavioral problem (yes, they are separate issues). How can you tell the difference and what can you do to provide your animal companion with the guidance he/she needs to live their best life? Sydney Warner of Clever Critters, LLC, understands the challenges pet owners face, and she and her team have the knowledge and skill to provide you with the solutions you need.
We had a chance to talk with Sydney about her business, Clever Critters, LLC, and discuss all of the potential ways how they can back up their “better pets. better parents” motto. Here’s what she had to say.
Tell us about Clever Critters, LLC.
Clever Critters was started in Knoxville, TN by my mentor Ellen Mahurin, ACAAB. I met her when she was living in the Hampton Roads area, not long after I had moved back from Tennessee. I sought her out looking for help for my dog Wesley, who was struggling with behavior concerns that I was out of my depth to help alone. I became a dog trainer because of Wesley. I adopted him in the spring of 2010 from the Peninsula SPCA in Newport News, Virginia. I was a volunteer there doing photography for their PetFinder profile.
I adopted Wesley thinking he was this perfect dog because, to me, he seemed so calm at the shelter. I was very wrong. Pretty quickly I decided I wanted to learn more about dog training and behavior. I was already an avid dog lover, but having dogs is not the same as learning about dogs. I began with Animal Behavior College in 2011, working to get my dog training certification while working at a veterinary office and seeking trainers to help me with Wesley.
It wasn’t until 2012 that I found Clever Critters and quickly learned that being a dog trainer is not the same as being a behaviorist. I also learned that the dog training industry is unregulated and there is a wide range of methods that people, certified or not, choose to use. Working with Ellen and Wesley I gained a lot of knowledge and experience.
Ellen chose to hire me after a few months, and I became a trainer working for Clever Critters. I pursued additional education to learn about dog behavior, not just training. In December 2013 I earned my diploma as a canine behavior consultant from Companion Animal Sciences Institute.
Then in January of 2014, Ellen had to move back to Tennessee for personal reasons, but before she did, she chose to leave Clever Critters to me. I was seeing my own clients at the time and was feeling good about what I could offer pet parents. Clever Critters officially became an LLC in March 2014, and I’ve been growing in knowledge, experience, clientele, and as a business ever since. I took on my first employee in 2020 and have had at least one additional trainer working for me since. Now we are a team of four and it’s been truly wonderful to have like-minded professionals working so closely with me.
What services do you offer?
My team and I provide behavior consultations for dogs and cats and work with behavior concerns including reactivity, aggression toward people and animals, general anxiety, separation anxiety, phobias, and more. We also offer other services, most in conjunction with the behavior consultation such as recurrent follow-up sessions, day training, and cc/d sessions (counterconditioning and desensitization). We also offer puppy and kitten services because we believe in proactive education and wellness and want to help set more dogs and cats up for success in their homes right from the start.
Sometimes our clients will request us for a veterinary or grooming visit to team up with the health and hygiene professionals. We also have provided Pet Match-Making for those who want to add a pet to their home but want some guidance or assistance. Other alternative services we have provided are for pet care companies that wish to partner with us. A few of these are Educational Programs at the Peninsula SPCA, seminars or lunch-and-learns for staff of vets, groomers, and pet sitters, community events, and more.
How can people get in touch with you?
Many of our clients are referred to us by their veterinarians or find us online. We also work closely with some rescues, shelters, and veterinarian practices, and partner with other pet services in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Anyone, client or another company, can reach us best on our website, through email at [email protected], via social media with Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, or by phone at 757-775-7987.
Many of our services are in-person at the pet parent’s home, but we can efficiently work with virtual cases and have a handful that currently benefit more from this! We service a wide range of Hampton Roads and Tidewater, but with virtual we can, and have, helped pet parents from all over the United States.
What is the process if someone wants to utilize your services? What can people expect?
As soon as someone contacts us and is interested in our services we begin the process by providing details for our Kickoff Consult along with a Pre-Appointment Questionnaire if the pet parent is ready to get started. The questionnaire helps our team review the pet parent’s location, behavior concerns, and pet species to determine which team member may be best suited for the case.
From there we schedule a Kickoff Consult. This is our two-hour virtual initial evaluation and assessment. A virtual assessment allows us to focus on the pet parent, them on us, and not potentially cause distress for the pet. Many pets we work with can be sensitive or pose risks to people entering or being in the home. This allows us to make a plan from the information gathered and with the pet parent for any in-person sessions we may choose to do.
During our Kickoff we review the pet’s and their family’s interactions, home environment, physical and mental health, and many other important factors to help us better understand the pet parent’s concerns and goals. The rest of the time we collaborate and build a behavior care plan with the pet parent and provide them with educational materials and resources to help them better understand their pets and how we will help with behavior change. This often includes teaching a couple of skills to the pet parent to get them and their pet started.
After the Kickoff we see them for Follow-Up sessions to continue progressing with their individual behavior care plan. Sometimes this could include, or do alternatively, one or more of our additional services. The frequency and the number of sessions depend on a multitude of factors individual to each case. Some clients don’t need our services for very long, while others prefer to keep us around for a while longer. Some have moved into what we’ve considered a maintenance schedule.
What’s the most difficult part of what you do?
Teaching the human half and helping them learn about how and why their pet behaves the way they do can be a challenge at times. However, I feel the most difficult part of what I do is the goodbye. It could be the pet parents and pets that I’ve been working with closely making huge strides and navigating struggles who graduate from our care, or the shorter cases that may not complete their plan with us but on their own, or occasionally the hard ones such as rehoming or even euthanasia (medically or behaviorally). I get attached to them all.
My clients know that they can always reach back out to me at any time, and some have. I have clients who ask me to move in (jokingly), some become friends, and some want to put me in their will to care for the pets should anything happen to them. It’s flattering, and I love each and every one. So, whenever that goodbye happens I may rejoice because they no longer need me, but it’s also difficult to see them go.
Do you have a favorite success story or two you’d like to share?
So many success stories to choose from! One of my favorites is a dog whom I’ve been working with for a while. It’s definitely one of my longest cases, but we’ve achieved so much and the pet parent will often remark on how far we’ve come.
I met this dog when he was only four months old and brand-new to his home. He’s disabled and it was causing some significant troubles in his life. The pet parent who adopted him had worked with me five years before with her other dog. She reached back out asking for my help with the new puppy.
The struggles began with his blindness contributing to discomfort and fear crossing the thresholds of the doors leading outside the home. He was using potty pads inside because he was unable to walk through the doors. This case challenged me in so many positive ways, starting with navigating his blindness, unsafe over-arousal behaviors through his adolescence, working through husbandry, safe integration with the smaller and older dog in the home, and much more.
Today this lovely and happy boy is five years old and has an amazing life with an amazing pet parent. It’s so interesting to look back on where we started and how far we have come. We’ve been in a maintenance phase for a while and I know it’ll be so bittersweet when they are ready to head out on their own.
There’s a difference between training issues and behavior issues, correct? Can you discuss those differences and why it is important to contact the right person for help?
In short, there are some big differences in training and behavior concerns!
A veterinary behaviorist I work closely with once told a client that “training and behavior modification are like cousins.” They have similarities but are different approaches. This is because of the need to achieve different outcomes. With training, we are working on school-like learning. The dog is safe, feels secure, and is in an optimal environment to easily learn new skills being taught. Behavior modification is more like therapy. These behaviors have strong emotional associations, genetic predispositions, unmet needs, and even a negative learning history due to pain, fear, or discomfort.
Unfortunately, I still run across too many pet parents who believe or have been led to believe that an obedient dog is what they should have or strive for. However, obedience does not equate to a mentally or behaviorally healthy dog. Most dogs (and cats) that my team and I work with need “therapy,” not training. Generally, when people think about training many envision the traditional group classes where you (hope) to teach your dog basic skills such as sit, down, recall, heel, etc. When I am training, I am assessing what the dog’s needs are, what their capabilities are, and what skills would be most beneficial and realistic for this dog and the environment this dog lives in.
Behavior modification, on the other hand, is when there is already a problem and we need to address the causes in combination with the behaviors. Dogs don’t “act out” or misbehave. The behaviors are being exhibited because the dog is struggling in some way. This could be struggling to learn the desired skills due to over-arousal, fear, miscommunication, or other factors. This could also be that the dog is exhibiting behaviors considered “bad” or unsafe due to fear, anxiety, over-arousal, and other strong emotional associations.
It is vital to do your research and to advocate for your dog when looking for help with both training and behavior modification. A good trainer will be using humane and updated methods. These will help set you and your dog up for success and positive associations. The trainer will also recognize when they are out of their depth and recommend you to someone more specialized in your dog’s needs.
If that is behavior concerns, you need to see a behavior consultant, behaviorist, or veterinary behaviorist. No matter who you choose, make sure they are credentialed and affiliated with organizations requiring the practice of humane and ethical updated methodology. Dog training and behavior consulting are science fields, and like any science field, they need to continue to move forward and update when we learn more.
If someone wants to become an animal trainer or behaviorist, what steps do you recommend?
There are many different ways to get started in this field, but ideally, they should lead you to organizations that follow the science of learning, biology, ethology, and psychology. This field is not regulated. It is too easy to find and get stuck in outdated ideas and misinformation.
The first questions I ask someone looking to enter the field are, what is their ultimate goal and why do they want to be in this field? There are many paths to take depending on your area of interest. I will also provide shadowing and mentorship opportunities for those pursuing a trainer or behavior professional route.
To become a dog trainer, you should look into a certification that will provide you with the basics and discuss why continuing education and humane positive-reinforcement-based training are most effective. From there your continuing education should be based on your area of interest such as agility, nose-works, basics, therapy dog, service dog, and so on.
To become a behavior consultant, you should already be competent as a trainer. There are additional certifications and continuing education that are more specialized for behavior consulting and specific behavior concerns. For example, I am additionally certified Low Stress Handling-Silver, which is focused on behavior in the veterinary field.
Next would be a behaviorist and a veterinary behaviorist. Both of these specialties require quite a bit more, such as completing veterinary school, a Master’s degree, or a Ph.D. There are, I believe, only two organizations that certify behaviorists. There are less than 50 behaviorists in the United States, and I was lucky enough to work with one early in my career. I have also been working closely with a veterinary behaviorist for more than five years. There are not many of these in the United States either.
My long-term goal is to achieve a Master’s degree and pursue a behaviorist certification. I am partially on my way there with my Bachelor of Science in Psychology, focused on animal behavior.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I understand that for many there are these ideas and beliefs they grew up with and have been told about dogs and their behavior. I’m not any different. I too referred to my dog in terms of “dominance,” and “bad behavior,” and believed that because I didn’t have an obedient dog I must have done something wrong. The thing is, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. So, I sought more knowledge and followed the research and the professionals studying modern dogs and their behavior.
It’s hard to change whether it’s our beliefs or our behavior. The more I was open to the knowledge, the more I learned and the easier it was to understand and change. It was my willingness to change my ideas and my behavior that my bond with my dog not only improved but blossomed. He appeared to be a much happier dog and we had a much happier life together.
My goal with my clients is to instill even a little bit of my knowledge and experience to them so they can enjoy their dogs more and their dogs can live a more dog-centric life. We love our dogs and there are many ways we try to incorporate them into our human world. However, to truly care for our dogs we need to understand that they are animals and that they need us to spend more time creating a dog-centric world for them. Ethically, it is our obligation to care for them in ways that meet their needs and promote physical AND mental well-being.