Welcome

This space is dedicated to the education of the public to the proper treatment of disabled individuals who are partnered with a trained service animal. 

Keystone Handler Academy

Hi, my name is Barbara and I have created Keystone Handler Academy by combining my past life experiences, skills and talents with my newly found passion of concept dog training to support and help humans with their canine service animal.

I have always been searching for just the right thing to do when I grew up. My work history is huge and includes a wide variety of attempts at doing the adult thing and having a career, but nothing really fit for me. I have a degree in Human Development and have a teaching license(human) in the state of Nevada. I have worked in the mental health field and involved with several research grant projects that allowed me to connect with clients without the usual constraints of a classroom or office structure. My biggest take away from those years was that the best place for someone to learn is from a place of safety and comfort. 

Fairly recently in my life journey, I started training service dogs. With a desire to know more about how and why a dog works, I started to learn from the wonderful folks at Absolute Dogs UK and became a concept trainer using games and the dogs natural drive to task train service dogs. Combine that with my nomad ways and I found myself traveling across the United States and into over 60 homes helping disabled handlers with their dogs. It was during this time that my vision of an academy where handlers could learn and be supported in positive ways grew into a passion. 

I live a mobile lifestyle and love to be on the road discovering new places and always looking for that place that could be a perfect home. I have a daughter and son in law who have made me a grandma to the most perfect little girl, who at almost two is very good with dogs already!

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