Kathy Santo has been training dogs since 1984 for competition AKC, UKC and CKC obedience and agility trials as well as basic home obedience and behavior modification.

To date, her students have achieved over 500 obedience, agility and Canine Good Citizenship titles. In addition, they were locally and nationally recognized as the top performers in their breed and group categories. For many years, she traveled across the U.S giving week-long competition seminars to improve the performance of hundreds of dog trainers everywhere.

Personally, Kathy has achieved every competitive obedience title the American Kennel Club has offered.

Kathy’s dogs have ranked nationally within their specific breed (golden retrievers and border collies), group and all around. Nationally she has placed and won at Gaines/Cycle Tournaments and the Detroit/Windsor World Series. Their phenomenal accomplishments have been acknowledged by the national magazine Dog World, which honored her with multiple Dog World Awards.

Her most prestigious achievement to date is earning the American Kennel Club’s exclusive “Obedience Trial Champion” title (OTCh.) multiple times. This title is often referred to as the “PhD’ of dogs.

To add to her credibility Kathy and many of her students have obtained multiple OTCh.’s - her last dog “Trigger” won the title in only 6 shows (3 weekends!) The standard time frame to achieve this sought after and infrequently awarded title is upwards of a year.

As a trainer, Kathy can boast that the hallmark of her and her student’s dogs is the ability to be technically precise, thereby losing few to no point deductions. At shows locally and nationally, their combination of accuracy and brilliant animation never fail to draw very large crowds.

Over 52 different breeds, owned by Kathy Santo’s students, have achieved recognition
by winning or placing nationally at sanctioned AKC, UKC, CKC, or USDAA trials, by
ranking nationally in the Shuman, Delany and OTch. Point rating systems, and by
achieving titles for obedience, conformation and/or agility.