Dawn Antoniak-Mitchell Esq., CPDT-KSA, CBCC-KA Dawn is a life-long dog lover and has been training dogs for nearly 25 years, since she was a 4-Her. During that time, she has successfully trained several breeds of dogs, including Cocker Spaniels, Dalmatians, Curly-Coated Retrievers, Jack Russell Terriers, and a Border Collie in multiple venues to class wins and titles, including conformation, obedience, tracking, rally obedience, agility, go-to-ground, and open terrier trial competitions. She has taken dogs of several breed to multiple high-in-trial obedience trial wins, national rankings in obedience and agility, and also trained the first Non-Sporting breed and first Dalmatian to earn a VCD title at any level, the first Curly-Coated Retriever to earn an AKC rally title as well as the first to earn all three rally obedience titles, and the first Parson (Jack) Russell Terrier to earn a rally obedience title. Her dogs have also done extensive modeling work for Hallmark, appearing on several dozen different Hallmark greeting cards and promotional materials. Her Jack Russell Terrier Lizzie B. was her long-time Delta Society Pet Partner and a Reading Education Assistance Dog. Together they worked with pediatric oncology patients, children with reading disabilities, children survivors of domestic abuse, and economically-disadvantaged children. Her current therapy dog Glitch helps children at the Phoenix Day School improve their reading skills by being a patient, non-judgmental listener.
Dawn has taught group classes for over fifteen years in a variety of settings and enjoys helping dog owners understand, appreciate, and communicate more effectively with their dogs.In addition to being a CCPDT Certified Professional Dog Trainer and a Certified Behavior Consultant - Canine, Dawn is also an AKC and APDT Rally Obedience judge, an AKC and CDSP Obedience judge, a TDAA agility judge, an IWPA weight pull judge, an AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator, and a training seminar junkie. She is a professional member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and is certified in Pet First Aid. She has been interviewed on television and Dogcast Radio and has been published in a variety of magazines, including the Dalmatian Quarterly, the AKC Gazette, and Pet Enthusiast. Recently her training tips have been selected for inclusion in Top Tips from Top Trainers, published by TFH, and her first training book, Terrier-centric Dog Training, is available from Dogwise Publishing, and book stores world-wide. Her non-canine passions are knitting, bellydancing, hiking, architectural history and photography. She has won several photo competitions and has a photo featured in the 2008 Jack Russell Terrier calendar produced by JRT Rescue.
Dawn is an attorney licensed in both Nevada and Nebraska; she currently focuses her limited private legal practice on small business organizations and pet estate planning. She is currently owned by three Jack Russell Terriers, a Border Collie, and a Dalmatian.
Dawn's combination of knowledge, skills and experiences brings a unique perspective to dog training that focuses on the need for real-life skills for both pets and their owners. She enjoys helping owners find ways to incorporate their pets safely and enjoyably into everyday activities and is passionate about helping disabled dog owners train their own service dogs.