In 2011 I founded The Cognitive Canine with the mission of serving people whose dogs had behavioral concerns. In 2016 I started Cog Dog Radio.
In the past ten years I have allowed the business to reach its branches, bend in the wind, and change with the seasons. It started with in-home behavior work and grew into in-clinic behavior work in conjunction with veterinarians. It started with innovations in puppy kindergarten and basic manners classes, and it grew into sport dog classes and sport dog-specific behavior work. It started in Northern Colorado and it moved to the Pacific Northwest. It started in the dirt; come rain, snow, or heat, and it moved online. I have shifted toward a certain kind of person I like to work with, rather than the type of dog. Pet dogs and sport dogs alike with dedicated humans who go the extra mile make up my private practice. This work has taken me across this country and across the globe; I have seen London, Sydney, and the glow worm caves of New Zealand, all because of this career. My podcast reaches people in fifty countries. This is not a brag, it is a statement of starry-eyed wonderment. All I have ever done was try each day to understand dogs better than I did the day before.
Now, a decade after I named my dream and started my boots-on-the-ground fight to make it a reality, it is changing again.
While the business entity The Cognitive Canine will remain, I will be shifting to the name of Cog Dog Coach, and embracing the fact that the names “Sarah Stremming” and “Cog Dog Radio” have far surpassed it in recognition. For the past six years I have served as a faculty member of Fenzi Dog Sports Academy and just this past week I wrapped up my final term teaching for this school (fittingly, I ended on Worked Up, which was also how I started). I am looking forward to focusing my efforts on helping my private coaching clients achieve their goals and educating other professionals in the field. All of my online classes will be available shortly through my own platform, along with webinars, a membership, a puppy program, and in the coming year, a comprehensive course for dog trainers. As we all learn better to live with the virus that changed everything in 2020, I hope to return to the seminar circuit soon. Of course, all of this will be second to the training and competing with my own dogs that drives me every day. I am going live at noon Pacific Daylight Time on Monday December 12th on all of my social media accounts: facebook (/thecognitivecanine), instagram(@cognitive_canine), and TikTok (@sarahstremming) to talk about these changes and answer questions. Please join me there.
I do hope you’ll all bear with me through inevitable growing pains, and that I see you all in my classroom again soon. Some of you have been here from the inception, and I thank you. Others are brand new, and I hope you stick around.
Cheers,
Sarah
