Palmira Beginnings

Palmira Beginnings to Present Day are a journey that has taken many years to arrive at.

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

My first introduction into training was taking Mahlee to a workshop, with Alpha Professional Dog Training in Victoria. Gaining 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 have watched the unique skills of each dog and what they bring to the clients.

 A couple of years later Darci and I completed our ‘Professional Dog Training’ Certificate. Again, with Alpha Professional Dog Training. With this behind us, I 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 between them and to train their dog to respond to commands under distraction.