30 Years in Dog Training: Why You Should Always Look For New Opportunities
What happens when a torn piece of paper changes three generations of lives, and why the most successful business program might be the one you swear you’ll never offer.
Trina Eddy is part of a three-generation family business called A Canine Experience in Snohomish, Washington. This November marks their 30th year in business – a milestone that didn’t happen by accident or by sticking rigidly to one business model.
The Bulletin Board That Changed Everything
The origin story starts back in 1980s Bothell, when you found jobs by checking bulletin boards at feed stores for flyers with those little tear-off phone number tabs. Fifteen-year-old Trina needed money to feed her horse (because as any horse owner knows, the horse costs a dollar, but feeding the horse costs everything), so she and her mom tore off one of those tabs for “kennel help wanted.”
“The gal that she’s talking to is like, well, what about you? Do you wanna train dogs? And my mom’s like, I don’t know anything about training dogs. She’s like, we’ll teach you,” Trina recalls.
That casual conversation launched a multi-generational business journey that would span financial planning detours, economic crashes, tech changes, and ultimately, life-changing work with service dogs.
When Equal Partners Need Unequal Roles
For years, A Canine Experience operated as true equals. Trina handled marketing, one sister managed bookkeeping, another took care of boarding, and her daughter handled ordering. Everyone did their specialty work on top of daily dog training duties.
Then COVID hit, and the aftermath nearly broke them.
“COVID hit, everybody’s businesses died. But what happened after COVID in the dog world is everybody got dogs after that,” Trina explains. The industry flooded with dogs, then with trainers trying to capitalize on the boom. Three years later, when people returned to work, rescues and shelters filled up with surrendered pandemic pets.
Business crashed. Trina interviewed for other jobs, going through three rounds of interviews with Central Washington University for a business advisor position. The family was struggling, and she was drowning trying to handle daily operations while also managing all their marketing needs.
The solution required breaking their own egalitarian structure. Trina stepped back from most daily training to focus full-time on marketing and business development – essentially taking on a CEO role while maintaining equal partnership in ownership.
“As much as it sounds cool to have everybody be equal partners, which we still are, there has to be somebody that kind of directs things,” she reflects. “Same in humans and dogs.”
The Technology Revolution (Led by a Self-Proclaimed Computer Disaster)
Perhaps the most dramatic transformation involved their communication systems. For decades, they operated with a landline and answering machine. Clients left messages. They called back. If no one answered, that was often the end of it.
“I am not a computer person. I want you to understand that, I’m such a bad computer person. Our computer guy jokes about how bad it is,” Trina admits.
Yet this self-described technology disaster became what she calls “an automation geek.” Working with business coach Sherry through a program called Connect X, Trina built systems that transformed their entire lead management process.
Now, when someone calls their textable number, missed calls trigger automatic text responses requesting information. Potential clients can schedule their own evaluations, prepay online, and receive forms and reminders automatically. Trina estimates this saves at least an hour per lead.
“I have gone from having a landline telephone and answering system that we had to call back to setting up automations… they can just schedule their own evaluation that they prepay for…”
Breaking the Rule About Day Training
Sometimes the most successful pivot involves doing exactly what you said you’d never do. For years, A Canine Experience offered boarding and training programs, group classes, and private lessons. Day training, where dogs attend “kindergarten” during business hours.
“We did something we said previously said we would never do, and we started a day training program. We did not think a day training program would work and be successful. And I’m here to tell you it is our most popular program and it’s very successful.”
The program emerged from necessity. They needed something to balance their weekend-heavy boarding business with weekday income. Day training offered the perfect middle ground between intensive board-and-train programs and do-it-yourself private lessons.
Dogs attend Monday through Friday, working on training throughout the day, with regular lessons for owners to learn the techniques. It provides intensive training without the boarding costs, and owners stay involved in the process.
Values Over Profit: The Daycare Decision
Not every potential revenue stream made the cut. Despite market demand, they abandoned a daycare program because the economics required compromising their values.
“… people do make money in daycare, but there we weren’t comfortable with the number of dogs one individual person would have to be responsible for, to make money… You would have to have like 15 to 20 dogs per person. And I just, we just aren’t comfortable with that. That’s too much to be safe.”
The decision cost them revenue but preserved their commitment to quality care. “It’s not just about making money. Like we really, really care about the dogs and the people and we really want to help better their lives through the training and what we do.”
The Subscription Model Revolution
Traditional dog training operated on short-term packages: six-week group classes, two-to-four-week board and train programs. Finish the program, take your dog home, done.
Trina recognized this missed the fundamental nature of the human-dog relationship. “Just like it helps us doing crossword puzzles and stuff to, for dementia and stuff like that. Learning for the dogs helps prevent that in them as well. Right. And also it’s about relationship and exercise and being a partner.”
They shifted toward subscription-based ongoing training relationships. Group classes became monthly memberships like gym memberships. Day training clients might continue with weekly sessions. The model created residual income that helped weather slower periods while better serving dogs and owners.
“What it does is it’s building residual income. Yes, people come and people go, but it creates a residual income. So that’s really helped us when we’re not as busy still be able to pay those bills.”
The Heart of the Work: Service Dogs That Change Lives
While pet training pays the bills, service dog work feeds their souls. Trina’s eyes light up discussing the autistic child whose service dog transformed his school experience, helping him make friends and develop social connections. She gets emotional describing veterans with PTSD whose lives improved dramatically with their service dogs.
The work expanded from basic PTSD support to diabetic alert dogs, seizure detection, and medical alerting for conditions like POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). Using scent-based training techniques, they can teach dogs to detect various medical episodes before they become dangerous.
“If I didn’t need to make a living, I would do this for free. You know, I would do the pieces I like for free… I would volunteer and do dog training. I would volunteer doing service dog training work for veterans. Specifically if, if I just was fully financed and could just do what I want, I would just be training service dogs all the time for people.”
Currently, Trina works with a dog named Moley being trained for POTS, teaching him to alert when his handler needs to sit down before losing consciousness, and to retrieve items so she doesn’t have to bend over – a major trigger for POTS symptoms.
Beyond Business: Search and Rescue and Archaeological Dogs
The conversation takes unexpected turns into Trina’s volunteer work with search and rescue, where she spent seven years training her German Shepherd for human remains detection. Now she’s waiting for a puppy to train for archaeological searches, working with teams helping Native communities locate graves from historical boarding schools.
“We’re working, my team’s been working a lot with Natives to find some of the graves from the boarding schools and stuff like that.”
The training involves unusual sourcing challenges – like asking friends going in for hip surgery if she can have their old hip for training aids, or purchasing bones from “the bone room” (apparently bone farms are a real thing in the training world).
Business Lessons From the Dog World
Thirty years in business taught A Canine Experience several crucial lessons:
Adaptation isn’t optional. From bulletin boards to automated text systems, from landlines to nurture sequences, businesses must evolve with their customers’ communication preferences and expectations.
Leadership can emerge from equality. Equal partnerships work until they don’t. When crisis hits, someone needs to direct traffic, even among equals.
Values aren’t negotiable. Profitable opportunities that compromise core values aren’t opportunities worth taking.
The best program might be the one you reject initially. Day training became their most popular service despite their initial resistance to the model.
Residual income provides stability. Subscription models create predictable revenue streams that help weather economic downturns.
Technology adoption doesn’t require technical expertise. Even self-described computer disasters can build systems that save hours of work with the right support and tools.
The work that feeds your soul often feeds your business too. Service dog training, while not the biggest revenue generator, creates the deepest client relationships and most meaningful impact.
The 30-Year View
As A Canine Experience approaches its 30th anniversary, Trina’s planning something special – possibly 30-day challenges involving 30 miles in 30 days, with prizes and celebrations. But the real celebration might be simpler. Surviving and thriving for three decades by staying flexible, maintaining values, and never forgetting that behind every business transaction is a relationship between people and their dogs.
The bulletin board flyer that started it all represented opportunity disguised as a simple help-wanted ad. Thirty years later, that moment of curiosity – “Do you wanna train dogs?” – continues rippling through generations of families, veterans finding peace, children making friends, and people with medical conditions gaining independence through their canine partners.
Sometimes the most profound business success comes not from following a master plan, but from staying curious, adapting constantly, and never losing sight of the lives you’re actually trying to improve.
Want to connect with A Canine Experience? Visit www.acanine.com, email info@acanine.com, or text (360) 488-0639!
