Student of the Month
Dog Trainer Cecilia Mushinskie
Cecilia Mushinskie is a recent graduate from the dog trainer program and currently resides in La Verne, California. She learned about Animal Behavior College online and started researching reviews about our certification programs. “ABC was very well organized, professional and provided the in-depth training I was looking for,” says Cecilia.
At this point in Cecilia’s career, she has not yet decided exactly what her focus will be. She enjoys private lessons as well as group environments. “All dogs benefit from training. I have a special focus and passion for shelter and rescue dogs. While many come with issues, they also have potential to become great members of the family.”
Over the past 32 years, she has been in a professional corporate position. Since her early teen years, she has taken pride in providing personal dog training to her animals. Since retiring, she chose to pursue formalized training so that she could not only better train her animals, but also assist others in training their dogs.
She always had animals in her life. As a small child, she was exposed to different types and sizes–from horses to cattle, pigs, dogs, rabbits and cats. The one constant was dogs. As a child and then into adulthood, she would take pride in teaching her dogs basic manners, basic dog obedience training, and fun and cute tricks. Friends and family would comment about her gift with working with dogs so after her early retirement from her corporate career, she decided to follow her passion.
Cecilia had an extremely positive experience during the externship. She partnered with a responsible and professional dog trainer who was capable of providing a variety of training: private lessons, basic, intermediate and advanced obedience training as well as problem behaviors.
“The ABC experience has been very positive,” says Cecilia. “The training covered various areas of training. It allowed for not only basic obedience, but also more in-depth training information. Both my Program Manager Azure Fike and my Externship Coordinator Stephanie Purdy were great to work with. They were readily available, and very responsive and professional throughout the program.”
She strives to find the potential in dogs and provide dog owners the training needed to bring out that potential. She considers herself to be successful when she’s able to do this, and help dogs and owners reach their potential.
Photo: Elliott (black) is about five-years-old. He is a rescue that she has been blessed to adopt about eight months ago. Joey (blonde) is also a rescue she adopted six months ago. He is 22 months old and still a bit of a wild child at times. He is fantastic with basic obedience, getting better with longer stays, and very good at walking on leash. Both have benefited greatly from the training and education she acquired through ABC’s school for dog trainers.