Kat’s specialty in the Canine Stars shows is Freestyle Dance with her dog Lava. She also does agility and dock diving. Chris’ specialty is disc. His specialty trick is juggling discs before throwing one for his dog.
Kat and Chris have three dogs. Lexi is the oldest at 12 years old (now retired). She was rescued from the Calgary Humane Society. Lexi is probably a mix between lab, border collie, and shepherd. Lexi and Chris performed one of their signature tricks (climbing a ladder) live on the Late Show with David Letterman in 2014. Lava is the next oldest at 4 years old. She is a red merle border collie. Lava loves to do EVERYTHING, including tricks, freestyle, disc, agility, and dock diving. Loufy is the newest member of the pack. She is a standard poodle and is 10 months old. She is learning the ropes from her big sisters.
Our favorite Canine Stars show is the Calgary Stampede. We love getting to perform for such a huge crowd and in our hometown.
There are a few important foundation skills we teach our dogs: leave it, then luring, and focus.
Three favorite tricks are bow, leg weaves, and jump over arms in a circle.
Kat started training her family dog when she was young. She started with tricks and then got into agility in Junior High School. She then started assisting and teaching agility and eventually started her own agility business in highschool. Later on as an adult, Kat became more passionate about trick training and became a Certified Trick Dog Instructor. She now teaches trick classes for fun. Chris started getting into dog training as an adult. His passion was parkour and did a lot of training with his dog Lexi. Chris has also dabbled in agility and disc.
Kat is a Registered Psychologist. When she is not playing with her dogs, she provides therapy to children, adolescents, and adults. Chris enjoys his time away from the dogs in the finance field.