Animal Training Academy

Veronica Boutelle Bio

Veronica is the founder of dogbiz, the dog pro industry’s leading business consultancy, through which she has been helping dog trainers help dogs since 2003. She is the author of How to Run a Dog Business: Putting Your Career Where Your Heart Is, Minding Your Dog Business: A Practical Guide to Business Success for Dog Professionals, and The Business of Dog Walking: How To Make a Living Doing What You Love. She also writes regular business columns and articles for many dog training industry journals, including those of the US, New Zealand, and Australian APDTs. Veronica is a sought-after speaker at conferences and dog training schools across the US and internationally, including her two favourite places to visit and work, New Zealand and Australia. She’s excited to be heading our way again quite soon—we’ll be talking more about that a little later.

As former Director of Behavior & Training at the San Francisco SPCA, and as a dog training business owner before that, Veronica understands what it means to be a dog trainer first hand—the daily worries about everything from client compliance to financial security, the unique challenges of a “flexible” schedule that requires evenings and weekends, and the struggle to balance clients and training with the minutiae of running a business—and to balance all of that with a rich non-work life. Her background as a trainer, her business expertise, and her work as an educator put Veronica in a unique position to help professional dog trainers learn to become as skilled in business as they are as trainers—and that means more dogs’ lives touched by positive training.