PUPDATE! MEET THE TEAM: Our Newest Experienced Trainer, Maya Carroll!
PUPS Pet Club is thrilled to introduce you to the latest graduate of our Training Apprenticeship – Maya Carroll!
Maya has been with PUPS for about a year now and most of that time has been spent in the daycare room or working through the apprenticeship program. When she started as a Daycare Attendant in our Lakeview Club back in January, she found that “dogs bring such joy, life and energy to everything around them” which is why she wanted to center her career around taking care of them. She felt the best way to do this was by helping pet-parents through dog training.
As an apprentice, Maya spent several hours a week learning the ins and outs of dog training from our Director of Training, Liz. Maya also shadowed the other PUPS trainers on their lessons so that she could “learn by doing” from her peers that have already graduated from the apprenticeship.
When Maya wasn’t in lectures or lessons, she was working in the PUPS daycare room! Not only was this a great way to bond with the dogs and her fellow PUPS teammates, but it gave her the opportunity to apply her education to real-life experiences. She realized that it takes some dogs a significant amount of time to get used to being in the daycare room. Some dogs also take a few hours, days or even weeks to learn how to politely socialize with other dogs. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing! Maya is willing to do whatever she can to build trust between herself and a nervous dog because she knows that a pup’s overall confidence, demeanor and comfort level will improve through these interactions.
Maya was fascinated by the fact that two dogs can have “their own unique way of doing things” despite maybe being similar in age, temperament or breed. For example, one of her favorite dogs at PUPS was a Shiba-Inu named Ino because Maya has a Shiba-Inu too! She quickly realized that the two dogs had very different attitudes and personalities. Likewise, she realized that the two dogs thrived in different atmospheres.
Now that she has graduated, Maya is eager to start leading lessons independently! Although she will mostly obtain clients that are focused on basic obedience, she’s especially interested in helping dogs during “transitional” periods of their life – whether that be moving to a new home, being adopted later in life or getting a dog more comfortable during a complete lifestyle change. She intends to “fully dive in” to her new Experienced Trainer role and take on new clients, primarily in the River North and Gold Coast neighbors. Maya says that she is thrilled to be in a position where she can “be useful to people and their dogs” because it gives her a profound sense of purpose.
Congrats on your graduation, Maya! We can’t wait to cheer you on and see what you do next!
