About Us
Marielle Schmidt lives with her husband Carl and two daughters on a 47 acre bit-of-paradise near beautiful Rock Creek Montana. They raise chickens, horses and dogs alongside the business of running Dogwerks Training Kennel. The property is home to a 3acre trout pond complete with islands and peninsula for duck-dog training, and a newly opened 21-run indoor-outdoor heated kennel building complete with indoor matted training area and outdoor play yards. The property is located on a dead-end dirt road and is surrounded by mountains and hiking trails.
Training philosophy and Bio:
Marielle believes that the key to effective training is clear communication with a dog. It is essential to understand that dogs don’t speak our language or share our culture. To be fair to our dogs we must step into the role of leader and interpreter for them. A dog learns (as do we) through consequences of his behavioral choices, and it is our job to provide appropriate consequences both positive and negative to help him to choose behaviors that work best for him, and for us. The goal is to provide reliable leadership so that our dogs can relax and enjoy being themselves, secure in the knowledge that they have a guide through this crazy human world.
Education: Graduated Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 1987 Cum Laude. BA in Biology modified with Psychology. Completed pre-veterinary curriculum.
- 1989 - purchased Rottweiler puppy began reading training books and preparing for AKC obedience competition. In the next three years passed all three levels of obed. Titles offered by the AKC (CD-companion dog, CDX companion dog excellent, and UD-utility dog) Has sinced earned over 30 more AKC Obed. Titles on a wide variety of dogs including Boston Terrier, Papillon, Bloodhound, Doberman, German Shepherd and Lab.
- 1992 - Began training in the sport of Schutzhund ( a german sport simulating police work requiring a dog to pass three distinct phases to earn titles at each of three levels. Tracking, obedience, protection.
Marielle has trained and trialed in the sport for 9 years earning 16 Schutzhund I or higher titles on seven different dogs some owned by her and some for clients.
She is not currently trialing dogs but still does “ Helper” work for others to bring out confident aggression in beginner through advanced dogs. - 1995 - Created Dogwerks Inc. offering group obedience classes, individual instruction and boarding with training for all breeds. Business has steadily grown, almost exclusively, through word-of-mouth advertising. Though she mainly does basic obedience and manners training, she is locally known as a specialist in aggressive behavioral issues.
- 1999 - Trained a Bloodhound for man-trailing.
Worked with a local sheriff Dept German Shepherd in drug detection and apprehension work.
Gave a day-long seminar for the Kalispell Mt police dept. On Protection training their dogs (while she was 6-months pregnant!)
Bought her first lab. Began training for duck hunting work - Fall 2001 - Began selecting (from local shelters) and training dogs for bomb detection work.
- 2004 - In collaboration with two wildlife conservation dog trainers, Dogwerks got a contract with the US Geologic Survey to select and train dog/handler teams for Brown Tree snake detection on Guam.
- 2006 - Certified two dog/handler teams in Guam for readiness to deploy to neighboring islands for snake detection.
- 2008 - Was selected for a BBC sponsored project to address the tiger/human conflict problem in remote villages in Bangladesh. Local dogs were to be selected and trained for tiger detection and the formation of an aggressive pack to drive a tiger from the village. Successfully overcame challenges of canine temperament issues (fear and aggression), human cultural differences and language barriers. “Tiger Hounds” film aired on BBC and Animal Planet fall 2008.
Since 1990 Marielle has been carefully breeding dogs of several breeds with the goal of improving temperamental and physical characteristics of each. She currently breeds beautiful yellow labs that hunt, and tiny, outgoing Papillons for show and family.
Marielle has had a lifelong interest in animals, and from the time she was twelve years old, she planned to be a veterinarian. She worked with a number of different vets through the years and decided that the relationship with the animals was important to her, and that animals coming to the vet were generally either hurt or scared, so the opportunity for positive interaction was limited. Also, the hours and on-call nature of the job would make it more difficult for her to have a balanced life. Marielle began dog training as a hobby and found that it was very satisfying for her, and that in fact, she had a gift for understanding dogs and finding ways to motivate and connect with them to bring out the best that they were capable of. She is also an enthusiastic and animated teacher, and enjoys the people-aspects of the job as well. Dog training as a profession has allowed her the flexibility and freedom to have a fulfilling family life, time for hobbies, and an interesting and ever-changing job that she loves!
