What and Who is The Sirius Trainer?

The Sirius Trainer first started in 1994 as an effort to promote interest in training working dogs and, particularly, spreading new ideas for training in all disciplines, whether in Schutzhund, tracking, obedience, service dogs or all types of working dog sport competitions. The greater level of sophistication in the internet now gives us an opportunity to reach a greater number of trainers throughout the world. Its goal is not to create forums, chat rooms or a purely commercial web site. Instead, our hope is to stir enthusiasm among working dogs trainers everywhere by offering an insight into new training techniques and answer questions about training. If we succeed in this alone, the effort is worth it.

The Sirius Trainer was founded by Gary Patterson, a working dog trainer for twenty-five years. He has trained four dogs from puppies to Schutzhund III, receiving an excellent or “V” rating more than sixteen times. He has placed 1st or 2nd in eight championships, winning highest scoring handler trained dog awards four times.

Gary was a founding member of The German Shepherd Dog Club of America-Working Dog Association, where he served as an officer and on the board. He is also one of the original members of DVG America where he served as North American Training Director. During that time he trained over 200 trial helpers and certified over 100 men and women under the German helper test program.

Gary has received the bronze, silver and gold competitor's awards from both The German Dog Sport Alliance (dhv) and The German Kennel Club (VDH). He has also received four bronze training medals from The German Organization for Sport Dog Clubs (DVG), the oldest and largest working dog training organization in the world.

He has written Tracking: From the Beginning, Schutzhund Protection Training and co-authored Training the Competitive Working Dog. These books have sold over 30,000 copies in more than fifteen countries. He has also written scores of training articles for both breed and training magazines. His training seminars have covered much of the United States and Canada where he has taught tracking, obedience, protection and protection helper work.

Gary was one of the early advocates of developmental training. This is nothing more than applying modern scientific theory of development to dogs from the youngest age, using the dog's behavior, not the trainer's, to develop a good training program. Over time these ideas have started to permeate all working dog training, moving away from some of the more traditional concepts of training theory. As one German championship trainer said, when asked about dog people questioning this approach, “I love it! If someone wants to wait eighteen months before they start training, that is just one more person I don't have to worry about in competition.”