Mary Phillips received her Bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, in Psychology from Ohio State University in 1995, at 32 years old. She returned to Florida and started working in Real Estate. She opened her own company in 2004, Along the Beach Realty, and has been working in real estate ever since. She received her dog training certification with honors in 2012. She immediately opened up her own Dog Training Company, Treat Me Right, Inc. Positive Canine Training, in 2012. She was hand-picked by Victoria, herself, to join the “Victoria Stilwell Positively Dog Training Team” in 2013. Mary resides in Merritt Island, Florida with her husband, Stephen, and their 2 Italian Greyhounds, Diamond Pearl and Toby Grant.
Mary hasalways loved dogs. Unfortunately at age 11 her brother was bitten, by a large dog, in the face and required over 150 stitches. That is when she developed a fear of large dogs. It was not until she was 33 that she decided to become responsible for a living, breathing, little puppy which she named Star. At the time, she thought she knew what to do with a little dog. Mary thought how bad could it be? She was 33, educated, financially secure, and this was only a 4 pound, 10 week old puppy. She could handle this right? Wrong!
Mary never owning a dog before knew she needed some help. She read books and talked to a lot of people, even took her new little puppy, Star, to obedience training. Well that was the start of bad advice from someone who believed in old school, “dominance type” training. It wasn’t long before she saw what this type of training was doing to Star and their relationship. She quit using any type of training on Star and just enjoyed her for her life. Star passed away at 13 in 2009.
After about a year Mary decided to get another puppy. Not wanting to make the same training mistakes as before she decided to use all “positive reinforcement” training. Diamond was only about 3 pounds, 12 weeks old, a little IG with small spindly legs. When they went for classes Diamond was so small compared to all the other dogs. Mary was afraid they were going to hurt her. Over the next 6 weeks Mary found Victoria Stilwell’s, “It’s Me or the Dog”, TV show on “Animal Planet” and started watching and learning from it. Diamond finished her puppy training and Mary decided she would continue to train Diamond herself using the tools and skills she had learned watching Victoria Stilwell.
Before she knew it, she was hooked on dog training. One day while Mary was watching “It’s Me or the Dog” a commercial came on asking “Do you love dogs? Would you like to learn how to be a dog trainer”? Mary thought “I think that would be fun”. Only problem was she was still afraid of large dogs.
Mary called the number and spoke with them about her concerns and soon started in a Certified Dog Trainers Program. Mary learned so much from the program and quickly started practicing what she learned with Diamond Pearl. The “positive methods” were so effective that Marytaught Diamond to ring a bell to go outside in just a couple of hours. Mary finished the program as an Honor student and started her new dog training company, Treat Me Right, Inc. Positive Canine Training, in Merritt Island, FL.
Maryhas been in business for over 3 years now and is so happy bringing joy to owners and their pets. Her psychology degree helps with her human clients, while her certification in dog training helps her with her furry clients!
Mary has based her training on the philosophies of Victoria Stilwell because Marybelieves in training “Positively” humane, scientifically-based training techniques thatgets the best results without any side effects of old-style training.
“I feel very fortunate and blessed to have found a career that I love and can learn something new every day”.
Mary Phillips, VSPDT
Treat Me Right, Inc. Positive Canine Training
Website: http://mary.phillips.positively.com/
Email: [email protected]
