Meet Kelly Keebler | Dog Expert Contributing to PawChamp

CDBC FDM — Dog behavior consultant specialising in fear, reactivity and aggression

Kelly Keebler is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant and Certified Family Dog Mediator working from Bangor, Maine and online. She is a graduate of the Karen Pryor Academy Dog Trainer Professional programme, holds Certified Professional Dog Trainer credentials, and serves as Chair of Education with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants.

H3: Key Takeaways

• Kelly Keebler holds five professional credentials in dog training and behavior, including CDBC and Certified Family Dog Mediator.
• She is Chair of Education with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants.
• Her specialism is fear, reactivity and aggression, alongside canine body language.
• She began teaching classes in 2011 and now works with clients across the country by video.
• She works entirely through positive reinforcement and environmental change rather than correction.

Kelly began teaching classes in 2011 at PetSmart in Pennsylvania. Working across several dog daycare facilities afterwards, she developed the interest that still defines her practice: reading canine body language accurately, and managing playgroups so that dogs stay safe in each other's company. She went on to teach facility staff to do the same.

While living in California she graduated from the Karen Pryor Academy Dog Trainer Professional programme in 2017, and gained her Certified Professional Dog Trainer credential in 2019. She now runs Keebler Canine Training from Bangor, Maine, works as a virtual trainer with a veterinary behavior practice, and takes clients anywhere by video.

Her continuing education includes Michael Shikashio's Aggression in Dogs master class and Dr. Susan Friedman's Living and Learning With Animals. She has coached at the Wild Blue Dog Camp in Lake Tahoe, which raises money for canine cancer research. Her guide to reading dog body posture is where that daycare-floor experience turns into something owners can use at home.

Kelly's work concentrates on the behaviours owners find hardest to live with, and on the signals that arrive long before them.

• Fear, reactivity and aggression.
• Canine body language and early stress signals.
• Playgroup management and dog-to-dog social dynamics.
• Behaviour cases where an internet label has been applied without evidence.
• Everyday obedience skills built without confrontation, from settling to leaving something alone.
• Remote and video behaviour work for owners without local specialist support.

Much of that work happens before a training plan exists. Her starting question is what a behaviour is doing for the dog, because two dogs showing the same behaviour often need opposite interventions.

• Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC), International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants.
• Accredited Dog Trainer (ADT), IAABC.
• Certified Family Dog Mediator (FDM).
• Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner (KPA CTP), 2017.
• Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT), 2019.
• Chair of Education, International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants.

Kelly's Family Dog Mediator training rests on the L.E.G.S. model, which reads a dog through four lenses before anyone calls a behaviour a training failure: what the dog has learned, the environment it lives in, the genetics it was born with, and the individual animal itself. A herding breed rehearsing a herding behaviour in a small flat is not disobedient, and treating it as disobedience will not help.

From there her approach is practical rather than prescriptive. She changes the environment around an unwanted behaviour so the dog has a better option available, then builds the skills that make the new option stick. Nothing relies on correction or intimidation.

She also spends a good deal of time undoing bad information. Her piece on whether rage syndrome is what your dog actually has is a worked example: take the label seriously, then check whether it survives contact with the evidence.

Behaviour and health are not separate subjects, and Kelly writes across both. A change in how a dog acts is often the first visible sign that something physical has shifted, which makes knowing where the line falls a practical skill rather than an academic one. Owners are usually told to watch for symptoms, but the earlier signal is nearly always behavioural: a dog who stops greeting at the door, hesitates on the stairs, or sleeps somewhere new.

Her guide to why a dog shakes, and when it is worth worrying works through the ordinary explanations before the alarming ones, and is clear about the point at which the answer stops being behavioural and starts being a vet's job.

She writes about the enjoyable end of dog ownership too, and applies exactly the same thinking there. Water is one of the places where owners most often assume a dog is fine because it has not objected, when the dog is in fact frozen and coping. Teaching a dog to swim is her method applied to something that looks purely recreational: go at the dog's pace, never force an entry, build confidence in shallow water first, and read the body language throughout rather than assuming a dog who tolerates water is enjoying it. Her step-by-step swimming guide covers the safety side that most articles skip.

Kelly holds five separate professional credentials, which is unusual, and she helps decide what the next generation of behaviour consultants is taught, which is rarer still. As Chair of Education at the IAABC she shapes the curriculum of the body that certifies her peers.

That body is also the one that reviews PawChamp content, and both of us train on positive reinforcement alone. It is a narrower overlap than it sounds: plenty of trainers describe themselves as positive without holding a credential that anyone audits. Past that shared floor, three things make her worth reading.

• She reads the dog before the behaviour. The L.E.G.S. framework forces a look at genetics and environment before anyone reaches for a training protocol, which is why two dogs who bark at the same trigger can leave her with two different plans.
• She is good on the signals people miss. Years spent managing playgroups and teaching daycare staff to read body language gave her an eye for the quiet, early signs — the freeze, the head turn, the closed mouth — that arrive well before a growl.
• She argues with bad information. Plenty of behaviour writing repeats whatever label is circulating. Kelly takes the label, tests it against what is actually known, and tells readers when it does not hold. That is harder to write and considerably more useful to read.

Fear, reactivity and aggression are the areas where owners are most likely to be sold a myth. Kelly writes about them for PawChamp with the evidence attached.

• Canine Body Language Explained: How to Read Dog Body Posture
• Rage Syndrome in Dogs: Why Even the Most Devoted Pets Suddenly Lash Out
• Why Is My Dog Shaking? When to Worry and When Not To
• How to Teach a Dog to Swim Safely: Step-by-Step Guide

• Keebler Canine Training — Kelly's practice
• LinkedIn

A note on veterinary care. Kelly is a behavior consultant, not a veterinarian. Where a behaviour may have a medical cause, or where a dog is already under veterinary care, that work belongs with a vet. PawChamp does not diagnose or treat medical conditions.