About Joyce Moore

Joyce L. Moore
Professional Dog Trainer, AKC Certified Canine Good Citizens Evaluator

Joyce Moore Has Gone to the Dogs

Written by Margaux Frasca

Friday, 30 May 2008

Local business owner Joyce Moore knows more than a little bit about animals and their behavior. Having owned a farm in upstate New York, she’s cultivated her love of animals into a way to help them, and their owners, be the best they can.

With two locations in New Port Richey and Port Richey, Joyce runs Joyce Moore Dog Training, a positive reinforcement training program for dogs and their owners. No harsh methods are used on your pet when Joyce works with them; as she says herself, “I treat every dog as if it were my own.” She says she was born an animal lover with a special place in her heart for dogs. Worried that too many animals end up in shelters because of unwanted behaviors, and hoping to prevent this from happening, Joyce started the training program to help owners understand their pets.

Joyce Moore Dog Training offers several specialty courses designed to help pets and owners in very different ways. Puppies are trained for socialization, good manners and basic obedience. The class will help your canine pal learn to sit, lay down, stay, give and take, drop and leave, come when called and that ever so difficult task… walk on a leash. She also helps the puppies learn to ignore distractions, understand distance and basic commands for heeling and waiting at the door.

Other classes offered work on skills dogs need to pass the AKC Canine Good Citizens Test and specialty courses for small breed dogs intimidated by their larger counterparts. Private and semi-private lessons are available for families with little time to fit classes in to busy schedules and free seminars are offered to veterinarians, doggy daycares or private animal facilities. Classes start at $99.00 for six week programs and quotes for private lessons can be requested. More information can be found on her website, www.joycemooredogtraining.com.

Joyce can also assist her clients with how to choose the puppy, or dog, that’s right for them and has started a new program called the Dog-Savvy Kids Club with emphasis on how to prevent dog bites. Statistics show that when a child less than 4 years old is the victim, the family dog was the attacker half the time and the attack almost always happened in the family home. Dog bites account for over 330,000 children per year being admitted to emergency rooms across the country, making it the second highest reason behind injuries from baseball or softballs. By teaching children how to interact safely with dogs, Joyce hopes to reduce that number and minimize the number of dogs being euthanized or turned in to animal shelters for aggressive behavior.

Joyce has successfully trained thousands of dogs in the five years she’s been doing what she loves and is a member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and the Tampa Bay Animal Friendly Trainers. Before becoming a dog trainer, Joyce worked on the set of Second Noah as an animal wrangler, as a bird trainer at Weeki Wachi Springs and volunteered at the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary. Joyce has lived in New Port
Richey since 1995 with her two exceptionally well trained dogs and two exotic birds.

Pet sanctuary a place for healing

By Erin Sullivan, Times Staff Writer

Published Saturday, November 8, 2008 12:14 PM (except from article)

ODESSA — Lisa Lewis leaned on the fence and watched Teddy with his trainer. After some prompting, he sat down.

"Good boy, Teddy!" Lisa shouted and clapped. "Good boy!"

Teddy couldn't hear her. The Australian shepherd is deaf. And lucky to be alive. Nearly a year ago, somebody stuffed him in a plastic bag, along with three other puppies, and tossed them into the Hillsborough River.

If not for a woman who happened onto this act of cruelty and fished the puppies from the dark water, all would have died. She kept one of the pups, which was blind. It's not clear what became of the other two. But two months ago, the rescuer decided she could only keep the blind dog and delivered Teddy to a nonprofit animal rescue group in Odessa, a unique place of healing and hope.

Healing in Teddy's case meant learning how to communicate with him. Shouting commands at him is useless, so Lewis searched for a trainer to teach them a doggie sign language. Lewis found Joyce Moore, a New Port Richey trainer who is donating her weekly lessons. The night before the second class, she got a roasted chicken and carefully picked off all the meat to use as training treats. Teddy, whose fur is mostly a cream color, with a coffee-colored rump, sat down again and got the sign for good boy — a thumbs up.

"He's learning," Lewis said, watching Teddy as though he were her child.

A veterinarian told Lewis and Lambert that Teddy, who has small, vivid blue eyes, will eventually go blind. "It could be tomorrow or it could be five years from now," Lewis said. "We don't know."

Being surrounded by all of this sadness doesn't make the women unhappy. Their philosophy comes from these pets, some of whom were beaten and starved and somehow are recovering — playing, cuddling, content.

"They live in the moment," Lewis said, as Teddy, done with his lesson, wet from the lake, stretched out across her lap.

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this story. Erin Sullivan can be reached at esullivan@sptimes.com or (813) 909-4609.

727-816-3973

teachyourdog@gmail.com

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