About Us
Read about Fiona & Vince
Owner's of K9 FUNdamentals
Fiona
Coupled with my lifelong passion and love for animals, I became a certified dog trainer in 2016. My qualifications include:
Canine Behaviour and Training Certificate (NZQA CAM-CBT)
Pet First Aid (Pet First Aid & Training NZ)
Puppy trainer (Pet Addict UK - online)
Certificate in Companion Animals (Mahurangi Institute of Technology)
Prior to starting K9 FUNdamentals, my career had been spent working in the corporate space. The majority of roles were at a senior level in change management, sales and continuous improvement.
My most memorable and gratifying role was working with Starship Hospital as a Project Manager, redesigning the patient and staff flow for Pre and Post Operation process. Working with staff, children and parents to deliver a great outcome was paramount.
Vince
As co-owner of K9 FUNdamentals, Fiona and I run our public classes and/or courses together as well my 1:1 training conducted with our clients.
My background is similar to Fiona's having had a career in senior leadership roles within Corporate along with currently running my Leadership & Career Development consultancy. For me, having the privilege of working directly with humans and canines is the perfect combination.
At home, our whānau includes three rescue dogs - Luka, Flynn and Bailee as well as our cats Steve & Maisie. We all happily live together on our beautiful property where we also train from.
We are both members of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers New Zealand (APDTNZ).
Read about the K9 FUN team
Bailee, Flynn & Luka
Our canine fur-kids are all adopted from various Animal Welfare charities.
Flynn (on the left) was adopted when he was a puppy. Strengths: ball chasing. Weaknesses: ALWAYS wants to chase a ball. Flynn spent nearly a year helping Fiona successfully complete her Canine qualifications at Unitec as her training buddy.
Bailee (middle) is completely deaf and had been in foster care from the age of 5 months. We adopted her when she was 2 years old along with a number of behavioural issues such as a strong prey drive towards cats and birds, resource guarding when it came to food and toys. We spent her first few months teaching ourselves sign language and then teaching her boundaries and 'manners' through positive reinforcement.
Luka is affectionately referred to as our 'Little-Big dog'. Luka came to us in a very sad state. He was diagnosed with a serious case of mange and at the time an unknown ailment of a broken leg that had not been treated correctly when he was much younger. Luka also had a noticeable tendency to be fearful of sticks and brooms, most likely the outcome of having been abused during an earlier stage in his life. Today, Luka seems to forever smile and is a gentle teddy-bear that follows his brother Flynn everywhere.
Flynn, Bailee & Luka are often called upon as K9 FUNdamentals team members to help us with training our clients dogs during controlled sessions. So you may come across either one of these fur-kids as part of the K9 FUNdamentals family.
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