Warm Woofs and Wags of Welcome to Agility Instructor and Competitor Sassie Joiris!

We are thrilled to announce Sassie Joiris will be teaching agility for us in New York City! I first met Sassie almost 17 years ago at Citydog Obedience School in New York City and am thrilled that she will be bringing her vast expertise and engaging teaching style to our students.

Sassie has been a professional dog trainer for 34 years. She taught competitive obedience for 24 years and then switched to agility and trick training. Sassie excels at motivating the 'hard to motivate' dog and has coached numerous students to succeed in agility competition when others have given up on them. In addition to class instruction and private coaching, Sassie is in high demand as a seminar presenter. In 2010 she will be traveling to Iowa, North Carolina and Washington states for seminars. Sassie's experience working with many 'non-traditional' breeds in agility has given her a great edge in teaching others to excel.

In addition to working as an instructor, Sassie has trained animal actors for thirty-years. She has worked with a wide assortment of species including dogs, cats, birds, llamas, rats and an assortment of reptiles. Her animals have worked on feature films whith movie stars including; Michael J. Fox, Peter Falk, Uma Thurman, Queen Latifa, Judd Hirsh, and Woody Allen.

Sassie has trained and titled dogs in agility lure coursing, hunt tests, earthdog, rally, and obedience. Her current dogs include Norfolk Terrier CH MACH Stamp JE NF RN. The first, and so far only, Champion MACH Norfolk Terrier, Stamp has been invited to every Eukanuba Agility Invitational since the trial's inception. In addition, he has competed at four National Championships. He was the AKC #1 or #2 Norfolk Terrier in agility during his entire career. Stamp has also appeared more than 65 times on television, in film, and in print as a professional dog actor. His most recent job is Salt starring Angelina Jolie. He also has a recurring role in the drama The Good Wife.

More recently, Sassie has started competing with her young Whippet, Boing! NA OAJ XF. Boing! is considered by many to be the fastest Whippet in Agility competition and great things are expected for her as she matures. Boing! has appeared on Ugly Betty and done work for Macy's. Sassie's newest dog, Toggle, a Pyrenean Shepherd, is still way too young to compete, but also shows great promise.

All of us here at Andrea Arden Dog Training wish to offer Sassie a warm woof and wag of welcome!