- April 25, 2024
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Karen Kellermann has worked with dog trainer turned TV Star Cesar Millan. She now works to rehabilitate abused dogs and create positive home environments.
BY MATT MENCARINI | STAFF WRITER
Karen Kellermann is putting leashes and harnesses on her six dogs, and for the most part, they’re behaving.
Occasionally, one acts up. gets a little rowdy, but Kellermann quickly and calmly settles it down. She can tell each one's temperament right away, she says, just by noting their body language or checking the direction of their ears.
Dermott, a three-year-old, has his ears pointed straight back. He’s in “game on” mode, she says, and gleefully chases his ball, which at this point is really more a quarter-chunk of ball.
Kellermann, who was raised in Minnesota, currently uses her Hunter's Ridge home as a base of operations for Karen’s K9 Psychology Center, which in the next few years, she hopes will have its own office space and land.
But for now, she travels to clients, who are sometimes in Alabama, South Carolina or other parts of Florida.
“I help train people and rehabilitate dogs,” Kellermann said from her couch, with a few of her dogs peering inside through a glass door. “If the person understands dog, and understands how to handle dog, dog will follow.”
Sometimes perceived behavioral issues can stem from abuse, Kellermann added, sometimes from the current or a previous owner. Sometimes, a behavioral issue could even stem from something related to diet or medicine.
To get a handle on each client’s situation, she starts with a phone call. And she starts by asking each owner a simple question: “Are you willing to change?”
“My whole goal is to go out and assess the dog — figure out what’s going on; assess the human, because that’s 95% of the problem right there; assess the environment,” she said. “And then (I) make a plan to help give the owner some tools and some training methods.”
Once she decides to take on a client, she travels to them to further identify the problem and get a better feel for what the home life is like, all the while she’s evaluating the interaction between the owner and the dog, sometimes with one of her own dogs there for a little added stimulus.
Some of the training and rehabilitation can take time, several weeks of Kellermann with the owner or taking the dog for a few days. But other times, there are simple fixes, like more discipline or a healthier diet.
Of the six dogs living with her now, only five belong to Kellermann. The sixth, Ringo, a 12-month-old Dalmatian and Labrador Retriever mix, is a foster dog, up for adoption out of the Carolina Poodle Rescue, an organization Kellerman works with frequently, based out of South Carolina.
All of her dogs are rescues, she says. She found Lidi, who is her oldest at nearly 12 years old, near a storage unit when she was 10 months old.
“I expected, two holiday seasons ago, to be putting her down,” Kellermann said. “She just has a desire to still live. So I’m blessed every day.”
Not so ruff
Call Karen Kellermann, at 868-0966.
Want to adopt Ringo? Vistit www.CarolinaPoodleRescue.org.
