About Gina Ryan - Breed Handler & Dog Trainer
Gina Ryan of Monmouth County NJ, owns and operates “Northstar Natural Dog LLC”, a raw dog food company, is an all breed handler, trainer, and agility competitor. Gina is a member of Collie Club of America, Bayshore Companion Dog Club & Jersey Agility-JAG. She practices Anusara yoga and is an advocate for natural health alternatives for herself and for her animals.
Gina has been competing in performance and conformation events with horses and dogs since the mid 1970's. She was introduced to agility at its start in the late 1990's. Her first dog was a rough collie who was a top placing competitor in all breed obedience. Her current smooth collie “Ryan” is competing at the excellent level and is a Herding Group placing American and Canadian breed champion and has placed at National Specialties. His kids are close to finishing their conformation titles with multiple best of breed awards and are showing great enthusiasm in their agility training. Gina is also currently training a whippet and has worked with many other breeds from various breed groups, including a bloodhound, dog de bourdeaux, basset hound, samoyed ,great pyrenese, and komondorok among others. From a very early age Gina has been interested in animal behavior, training & competing.
Gina’s training methods have evolved over the years from her long time exposure to performance horses. She learned the mechanics of jumping, timing, striding, and course strategy from working with numerous hunter and jumper riders. A great influence came from working for USA Olympic team grand prix jumper rider Nona Garson. Gina’s years of training & riding dressage horses has given her a unique perception for what an agility run should look like. “For me, like a dressage ride, it should appear synchronized, effortless & elegant, like poetry in motion.” Likewise these elements are necessary for excellence in the conformation ring. Gina’s eye for structure, balance, movement and self carriage allow her to get the most out of the dogs she handles and trains. Several of her novice students have handled their very first dogs to major wins as well as AKC championship titles with in a very short time after beginning training. Gina utilizes positive methods with the use of clicker training. Her goal in training her own dogs is to bring them to their highest potential both physically with cross training & conditioning and mentally with interesting & diverse positive training methods.
Her goal for her students is to make the training experience as stimulating and as motivating as possible while focusing heavily on relationship building between dog and owner. If students are looking frustrated or confused she breaks things down until she sees progress so that each session shows a step up the ladder in learning for the participant Gina stays current with her training methods by attending classes from a diverse team of instructors and seminars from many different venues. She believes that there is something to learn from every training situation whether it may be what TO do or what NOT to do. Conscientious, gentle, and respectful methods are what she seeks from her journey in learning with all animals.
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