A Dog's Best Friend: Dog Training by Martina Contreras

Home page

Class registration

Workshops

Group obedience classes are held in Redwood City and Mountain View, California.
See class schedule

For questions or information, please e-mail Martina at Martina@MartinasDogs.com or call (650) 367-6124.

Martina's services include:

Puppy kindergarten classes
Group classes from basic beginning to advanced obedience
Private sessions one-on-one with the owner
Extensive behavior consultations, specializing in aggression problems, particularly dog-on-dog aggression
Games and tricks classes
Kids’ workshop on various issues such as "safety around dogs"
Canine Good Citizen classes

Qualifications

Martina is a Certified Pet Dog Trainer (CPDT) as determined by the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT).

Martina is accredited by the Pet Behaviour Institute of the U.K. as a Dog Training/Behaviour Specialist.

Martina is an AKC Approved Evaluator for Canine Good Citizens (evaluator number 5708). If you are interested in having your dog evaluated, please contact Martina at (650) 367-6124 for information. What is a Canine Good Citizen?

Seminars and workshops Martina has attended

Several week-long Annual APDT (Association of Pet Dog Trainers) conferences, since 1997
7-day Wolf and Dog Behavior Seminar, Indiana, June 2000
6-day Advanced Instructor Training Course, Jan. 2003
10-day John Rogerson Instructor Seminar, Texas, March 2003
Aggression Workshop by John Rogerson, October 2003
Workshops by individual trainers/speakers, including Sue Sternberg, Trish King, John Rogerson, and Donna Duford; with subjects including:
- Temperament evaluation
- Stress in shelter animals
- Handling difficult dogs
- Aggression (dog/dog and dog/human)

Awards and recognition

Animal Protection Volunteer of the Year, San Mateo County, 1997
Time Commitment to the Animals, Pets in Need, 1996

Membership and Affiliations

Member, Association of Pet Dog Trainers, #002234
Member, Animal Behavior Society (ABS)

Martina's background:

Martina has always been an avid animal lover, and spent most of her summers on a farm in her native Germany bottle-feeding calves, piglets, and anything else with four legs. She walked her neighbors’ dogs and cared for other people’s cats. Three rottweilers

When she moved to the United States in 1989, Martina immediately became interested in animal rescue organizations, and soon thereafter adopted her first dog from Peninsula Humane Society. She also started fostering puppies and kittens before they were ready to be adopted out. Of course, if you’re involved in rescue work, your house is soon full of animals. Martina and her husband ended up with-- for a while -- four dogs and two cats, all from various animal shelters and rescue groups; they have recently added a fifth dog, Jimmy, to the family.

Martina started training her own dogs in 1990 and quickly became involved in training other people’s dogs-- just for fun. Martina began working as a volunteer dog trainer at Pets in Need, training many shelter dogs in basic obedience, as well as rehabilitating special-needs dogs with a wide range of behavior problems such as fear biting, dog/child agression, extreme shyness, and more. She has also trained several deaf dogs with sign language, and worked with blind dogs. Martina started her own training business in 1997, and has worked full-time as a dog trainer and behaviorist since then.

Read about Martina in this article from Gentry magazine.

Read about Martina's canine companions