Palmira Beginnings

Palmira Beginnings to Present Day is a continuing journey taking many years to arrive at.

As Breeder and Trainer of Palmira Healing Puppies, I (Penny) started the journey while counselling and supporting trauma survivors. While working with clients I occasionally introduced a dog into the counselling session. Watching the impact my little dog Tess, had on a young client changed my approach to trauma healing. Noticing the unspoken language and how the dogs communicated, both to the client and to me about the client.

I trained with Mahlee at a workshop, with Alpha Professional Dog Training in Victoria. We gained accreditation as a Therapy Dog Team. Mahlee has always been an exceptional Therapy Dog because she gave insight to a client’s status, when words eluded them.  Over the years I watched the unique skills of each dog and what they bought to the clients.

 A couple of years later Darci and I completed our ‘Professional Dog Training’ Certificate. Again, with Alpha Professional Dog Training. I then began to train all my dogs in the same manner. With progressing knowledge, I created a training program for clients, so that they could learn how to train their own pups. Allowing many teams to become accredited in the ACT as a Service Dog and Handler Team. This has been an extremely satisfying project, for me.

With all the training I do, I follow the same foundation as I have with Therapy and Service Dog training. Teaching the handler to build a language and to train their dog to respond to commands and tasks under distraction.