Kate Bigger
Owner and Head Trainer
Kate Bigger, CDBC is a Boston based animal behavior consultant and trainer who specializes in helping people with dogs that need a little extra understanding. From aggressive to terrified, she has helped a wide variety of dogs with problematic behaviors for the past 18 years. She specializes in helping change the feelings and behavior of dogs who bark and lunge on-leash as well as dogs that guard things like food bowls, couches, an old toy that nobody cared about until this morning, dogs with big feelings about being left alone and a variety of aggression issues.
Kate is also a passionate sport dog trainer; specifically scent work, competition obedience and agility. She is a seven-time National Agility Invitational Qualifier, multiple National Agility Finalist, who has racked up six agility championships on three different recycled dogs. Kate has had years of experience training happy and confident sport and city living pet dogs.
As the president of Performance Scent Dogs, a national sport scent detection organization, she has traveled from Alaska to Florida to Canada to judge and fine-tune hundreds of scent work teams. Having seen dogs lives transformed for the better so many times through scent work, and the profound impact it makes on the dog-human relationship, she is dedicated to helping grow scent work. She mentors scent work instructors and offers free classes to foster dogs.
She is also a real estate broker in the Boston area helping people find great homes. Most of her clients are dog owners, so it was a natural to call her real estate company Yard For The Dog. You can find out more here: www.yardforthedog.com
All about certifications:
There is no licensing currently for dog trainers and behavior specialists. This quote from the NYTimes article sums it up “Beyond wasting time and money, unqualified trainers can cause psychological harm to your pet, possibly leading to permanent damage”
https://www.preventivevet.com/dogs/what-does-that-dog-training-certification-mean
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/smarter-living/how-to-find-a-qualified-dog-trainer.html
Blame Daisy. This whole thing is her fault. Daisy, a rambunctious Irish Terrier who came to me from rescue when she was about nine months old, was a typical very high energy and low focus dog. Butterfly brain. She’d flit here and there leaving a path of destruction in her wake. Shiva in a red fur coat. She never met a cardboard box she didn’t think it was her responsibility to be returned to the earth in fine shreds. Also, metal cans. Plastic cd covers. Socks. Power cords.
In an effort to reign in her cat chasing ways, I turned to the internetz. Put coins in a soda can, tape it closed, and shake it at the dog to interrupt whatever nonsense they are doing. Great idea…I thought. If a dog could snicker while mocking attempts at forced compliance, that would be Daisy. When she sneakily swiped the can off a high shelf, ran amok through the house wildly shaking it in her mouth absolutely delighted by the metallic ringing of the coins, well…that’s when I turned to effective science-based training. Behavior is indeed the study of one. Daisy went on to be a great friend to her feline companions, an awesome off-leash hiking partner, and a nationally accomplished agility dog. She passed at the ripe old age of 16, still insisting on going for long sniffy walks at every opportunity.