Jenna McDonald began training dogs in Southern California while still in high school, after neighbors complained that their dogs were biting their kids whenever cars passed by. At the time, she was learning to train horses and assumed dogs wouldn’t be too different. (She turned out to be both very right and very wrong.) Before long, she was working with dogs across her town, relying on intuition, some horse training knowledge, and (let’s be honest) luck.

She earned a degree in behavioral psychology from the University of Guelph in Canada. While there, she met and fell in love with a 125-lbs, human aggressive king shepherd. After successfully rehabilitating and adopting him, she realized most trainers avoided such cases — and decided that’s exactly what she wanted to specialize in.

Jenna returned to California, apprenticed under several trainers, and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she built a thriving business working with dogs who had serious behavioral issues. After nearly 15 years, she and her husband relocated to Salem, OR. There, she’s rebuilding her business while also working at a local pet store, teaching classes and focusing on preventing behavioral problems before they start

Jenna has a quirky sense of humor and a lot of compassion for both her canine charges and her human clients. She’s eminently practical and looks forward to this next chapter of her life.