We were lucky to catch up with Rachel Harris recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Rachel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

Dog training is an unregulated industry that really pushes results over animal welfare. I have devoted my career to making sure that dog guardians understand their dogs for who they are as sentient beings and approach training from a compassionate and kind mindset. Our dogs deserve to learn without pain and to be understood and acknowledged for how they are feeling. It’s been a joy to show my clients how to truly connect and understand their dogs and train them in a modern way that doesn’t involve outdated and harmful power structures.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started my career as a dog trainer because of a dog we adopted that had some pretty serious behavior challenges. We adopted Sunny, a dark brown pitbull mix and it was quickly evident that he had a lot going on. Like many dog guardians I felt like I was in over my head. I wanted to know as much as I could to help Sunny live a happy and full life. Through years of learning and staying committed to my continued education I started A Good Feeling Dog Training. Our whole mission is to help dog guardians understand their dogs better and when they can understand their dogs better it makes it so much easier to communicate and begin to work as a team. We help dog guardians with dogs of every breed, age and temperament but our main focus is helping dogs who display reactive and aggressive behaviors. Dogs who can behave in reactive and aggressive manners are often so misunderstood and we help dog guardians understand how to help their individual dog to live their best life and in turn decrease the reactive and aggressive behaviors. We help dog guardians both in person and through our virtual group coaching programs.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I was always intimated by social media. I didn’t think I had the time or energy to make it work but I was really wrong on this one. When I started to really put time and energy into my Instagram account I was so pleasantly surprised with the community of people I was able to connect with. I think that it’s important to remember that the power of social media really lies in connecting with other people who are dealing with the same things that you are. I do my best to be honest and authentic in all that I share on social media and it has really lead to meaningful connections and a lot of followers who are delighted to realize they are not alone.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I think like a lot of business owners, when the pandemic hit I had to make a huge pivot in my business model. I had been mostly working with people in person and I am so grateful to my team who was ready to support me in moving what we did into a virtual training course format. We were able to meet and safely film loads of content that eventually turned into our signature coaching program Reactive Redefined. It was a hard pivot but 2 years later I am so proud of my team for how we were able to pivot and give our clients an amazing support system virtually.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.agoodfeelingdogtraining.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agoodfeeling_inco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AGoodFeelingDogTraining

Image Credits
Jordan Trout Martin Jernberg