About Animal Smart
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About Our Team
Kacie Hodges
Kacie started her training career with animals in 2004 at the Texas State Aquarium working closely with several exotic species. She began working full-time with dogs in 2007, and has extensive experience as both a trainer and veterinarian technician. She is a Canine Good Citizen evaluator, and both pet first aid and CPR certified. She has given years to our local rescues working outreach as a behavior specialist and educator with local organizations evaluating dogs’ temperaments for placement and transport. She has a passion for animal behavior and surfing. You can often find Kacie training at the beach with her own dogs and client dogs.
Joree Jackson
Joree has had a love for animals since she was little, aspiring at one point to be a vet. She spent the majority of her young adulthood riding horses and going on adventures with her family dogs.
She started her professional dog training journey just before graduating from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi with a Bachelors of Science. She is certified through the Certification Council of Professional Dog Trainers and is focusing her learning on service dog training. Training pet dogs started as a way to keep busy, make extra money and spend time with dogs. However, it very quickly turned into something she passionately loved and decided to turn into a career. She remains obsessed with learning about positive reinforcement and science-based dog training. Joree has a passion for working alongside people and their dogs to help them build the best relationship possible.
Andrea Bogle, MSc
Andrea is the founder and owner at Animal Smart. She started her animal training career in 2002 and has worked with a variety of domestic and exotic species at zoos and aquaria around the world, including the Texas State Aquarium here in Corpus Christi.
She is a certified dog trainer through the Certification Council of Professional Dog Trainers. Her experience includes training animals for TV and movie productions, research training with wolves and dogs, training dolphins for animal assisted therapy and working with pet parents to help them overcome problem behaviors. Andrea is currently a professor of animal science at the Animal Behavior Institute. She teaches training courses to zookeepers, trainers, behavior consultants and other aspiring animal professionals getting their certifications.
Serving to provide positive & effective training experiences for our clients.
Animal Smart Training is here to help you with your pet! We seek to always provide amazing behavior results you will love. Whether you are looking to crate train your puppy, or want to keep your 80lb dog from jumping on guests, we are able to help.
We offer exclusive programs that take a holistic approach to training. Our programs teach both you and your dog essential skills to enjoy a long, happy life together. Contact us today to learn about the benefits positive training can have on your dog.
Because our training team excels at training animals AND teaching people. Our program design focuses not just on working with animals, but teaching training skills to adults and families. No matter what the behavior problem, we will make sure to set both you and your pet up for success to solve it. Choosing us means choosing a better behaved dog, and choosing for your life to be changed for the better with the results we will get together.
No matter what program you choose, we expect our clients to be fully committed to their pet and to the training experience. With any program it is important that owners follow through for the training to be successful long term. Depending on the type of training you choose, we will either coach you through every step of the way to make sure you are successful in training your pet, or give you a terrific head start by training your dog all cues and behaviors for you that you just have to maintain.
Animal Smart Training uses positive reinforcement training, which is a method that is scientifically proven and force free. We focus on all the good things your dog does in training and use rewards to communicate what behaviors we like (for example through Clicker training). If your dog does something wrong, we help them figure out what the right behavior is and set them up for success. This makes training effective because your pet is highly motivated to succeed and it helps build a strong relationship between you and your pet. We never use prong, choke or e-collars and have no need to because we achieve better results using positive reinforcement! Modern studies have found that training methods using ‘dominance theory’ are outdated, flawed and less effective. Here at Animal Smart we do believe in leadership, but know that using punishment or dominance is not the way to be a good leader. We employ benevolent leadership instead which focuses on being fair, consistent and setting boundaries for our animals to safely live in our human world.