Our Story
Everything I teach about behavior began with a dog who noticed something about me before I noticed it myself.
Her name is Monica, and she’s the one who inspired it all.
She arrived as an eight-week-old puppy with a wrinkled brow and a habit of nudging me awake in the middle of the night…
She was the first to notice something was wrong.
She arrived only a few days before, an eight-week-old puppy with a pudgy nose and a wrinkled brow she hadn’t grown into yet. In the night she would nudge me awake, and I at first put it off to needing potty breaks. When she didn’t want to go out — only sighing and returning to her bed with a slight tail wag — I’d shrug and lay back down myself. This happened frequently enough to be a bit irritating. I’d feel guilty, and hope it was because I hadn’t felt rested in the mornings for a very long time.
As the days passed and we built our bond, I was becoming enamored of her sweet, joyful, and at times boisterous nature. She bounded around her new home with exuberance, ears flapping happily around her face. Yet she returned frequently to nudge me — wrinkled brow even more prominent, soulful eyes looking at me in the way that had captured me when we first met.
| It was as if she were asking: Are you well? She knew I wasn’t. But I didn’t — yet. |
At my first doctor’s appointment after her arrival, of course I had to gush about my new friend. I mentioned in passing that she continued to interrupt my sleep, even though it was obvious she was housebroken. It brought about a conversation about sleep and rest, and a referral for a sleep study.
During the twenty-four-hour study at home, my daughter was the one who noticed: Monica was poking me with her nose a minute or two before the monitoring equipment recorded that my breathing had stopped.
Imagine my surprise when I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. My dear little Wrinkle-Face had been trying to wake me up for an extremely good reason.
Once I had an understanding of what she was doing, I began to pay closer attention. I watched how she interacted with the other dogs. I watched how she interacted with people — until the Pandemic of 2020 put all of our socialization plans into a tailspin.
Due to lockdown, I wasn’t able to get her out into the community as I should. She was overly sensitive and lacked confidence in public. I started her real-world training the way I had learned to. I used a nylon correction collar only one time.
It struck me like lightning. Force was damaging to her psyche.
The mournful glances she gave me at any hint of verbal disapproval started my concerted quest for a better way. My intuition knew there was one. There just had to be.
| Her intuition had led to a better life for me. I would follow my intuition until I could make a better life for her. |
Thank you, sweet Monica.
I hope I make your life as loving and rich as you do mine.
A note from the present
I wrote this in 2020, while I was studying at the Victoria Stilwell Academy of Dog Training. I didn’t know it then, but I was writing the origin story of everything that came after.
Monica nudged me awake — literally — before I knew what waking up meant. She asked why before I had learned to. She read the whole picture of me, quietly, from her bed in the corner, and she kept showing up until I listened.
That is what I now build toward with every client and every dog I work with. Not compliance. Not management. The kind of attention that asks why before it corrects. The kind of understanding that comes from watching, not from telling.
Monica’s profile became the icon of this business. She didn’t just inspire the name. She is the name — the one who showed me that a dog’s intuition, trusted and followed, travels further than any technique ever could.
| Well First Pets · Dog Training & Welfare Built on the Five Pillars of Welfare. Always asking why. Finding the good in every being. |