Welcome to the Blog!

Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Kiri Shumaker and I am a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA) with the Council for Certified Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT). My intent with this blog is to share my knowledge about dog training and care, and grow the Rebel K9 Ohio community. I have been in the animal industry for many years and have worked in various capacities with animals–I truly love what I do and I’d love to share what I’ve learned! Oftentimes as a professional I get questions from pet owners and handlers about certain topics; I hope to answer many of these questions and more through blog articles. My goal is to make this a friendly, positive, accessible learning space for all kinds of dog people.

First, a little bit more about me. I grew up in Southwest Ohio and developed an obsession with dogs early on (think like horse girl but with dogs) and that obsession has continued to follow me into adulthood. As a child, my favorite thing to do was to help my mom take the animals to the veterinarian and watch them work. It was and still is fascinating to me! Aside from learning to care for my animals properly at such a young age, I also developed an interest in dog training from attending dog training classes with my first two dogs, Bree and Jasper. I was always the youngest trainer in the room, but I eagerly soaked up every ounce of information there was to be had. I also had a voracious appetite for books and absolutely devoured every non fiction book about dogs there was to be had. This sparked a fascination with purebred dogs, the history of breeds, and working dogs that I have to this day. Dogs are such incredible creatures and it is pure joy to watch them do what they were bred to do!

This however, does not mean that I don’t love mixed breed dogs equally! My second dog Jasper was a Bluetick Coonhound, Siberian husky, and German Shepherd mix and I loved him with my whole heart. I have also worked with many mixed breed dogs over the years and I can say it’s definitely interesting to see which breed traits come through in each individual dog.

Throughout my teen years, I continued to be obsessed with dogs and trained diligently with Jasper and our other family dogs, Kyle and Kenny. My goal when I applied to college was to become a veterinarian, however the cost and requirements deterred me from achieving that goal. I did however obtain a Bachelor’s of Science in Animal Sciences with minors in both Biosciences and Human & Animal Interactions. During and after college, I worked in various animal industries, from boarding and daycare, to private practice vets, to non profit clinics, to working with service dogs, to dog training for a daycare franchise, to finally owning my own business now. I’ve been working in an animal related job since 2014 but truly I found my calling in 2017 with training. 

I started focusing on animal behavior and training with my Border collie Huxley, who was a certified therapy dog with Therapy Dogs International, a Trick Dog Advanced, Canine Good Citizen with titles in Dock Diving as well. In addition to Huxley, I worked with family and friend’s dogs for experience and found that I truly enjoyed the teaching process. When I worked for the daycare franchise I had group classes as well as private lessons teaching mainly basic obedience as well as a few minor behavioral cases. While I was getting experience training dogs, I was also studying canine behavior online and through reputable books from experts who had been in the field for decades. In 2019 I finally took the CPDT-KA test and passed with flying colors. This meant that I passed a 200 question test on canine behavior and training theory as well as accrued over 300 hours of dog training experience. This also means that I continue to study and gain experience because I am required to obtain continuing education credits and recertify every three years in order to maintain my CPDT-KA status.

I started Rebel K9 Ohio in 2020 when I left the daycare franchise and though we’ve been through some ups and downs (thanks to Covid-19), I can truly say I’m living my dream of running my own dog business! It’s hard at times doing things all by myself, but there is no other boss I’d rather have than myself. I continue to study and work hard with my four current dogs as well as our family of clients. 

Additionally, I trained Tate to be my service dog for my various mental health conditions and autoimmune issues. He performed a variety of tasks from alerting to oncoming anxiety attacks, disrupting dissociative behaviors, providing deep pressure therapy, medication reminders, following trusted people in crowds and providing space for me in crowded situations. For two years he was an immensely valuable resource for myself and truly helped me gain a sense of independence I’d lost over the years of struggling. In the beginning of 2022 I had to retire him early however due to a genetic spine condition where he was already developing arthritis. He now enjoys retired life as a pet and is very spoiled!

Leerie is my current service dog prospect, and though we have a long way to go with our training, she is already showing a lot of promise. She has been such a bright spot in my life since I lost my oldest Jasper last year and I am forever grateful to her breeder for trusting her with me!

Outside of dog training, I enjoy comic books and superheroes, sci-fi & fantasy books and tv shows, playing video games, photography, writing, hiking, and spending as much time outside as physically possible. I am very much a self-proclaimed nerd–I’m into pretty much every nerdy franchise there is. I’m introverted and prefer spending time with my dogs at home over meeting new people, but I’m always happy to talk about dogs!

Thank you for reading this far! My next articles will be more dog-focused, and include links to more information to follow up on if you’re interested. The whole goal of this blog is to provide information to dog lovers, owners and handlers alike in a positive, friendly and accessible environment. If you have questions, comments, concerns, hopes, dreams, fears, blog ideas, recipe recommendations, snide comments— literally anything— please do not hesitate to reach out to us on any of our social medias or through our contact us section. Thank you again and welcome to our blog!