Olivia was born and raised here in Syracuse, NY. She graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science in Hotel Administration.
Olivia lived all over the country, including Arizona (her favorite), Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Texas, North Carolina, and California.
Olivia has always loved animals and wanted to be a zookeeper. She worked at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo as a volunteer for 6 years in the Domesticated Animal Barn, working with llamas, ponies, donkeys, sheep, goats, guinea hogs, and a dog. This is where she began her experience in professional animal handling and began learning to train domesticated animals.
Olivia started this company in 2019 so she could combine her passions of business and animals. We want to offer the best level of service and care to dogs (and other animals) and provide the most enriching, satisfying lives possible for them. A high level of attention to detail, compassion for animals, integrity, and trust, and exceptional training and behavioral development are what we would want for ourselves, so that's what we've created. Â
Huckleberry, Olivia's angel dog who started it all. He was formally known as Sir Huckleberry Royce, but we called him Huckle. He was an English Chocolate Lab, born in the Catskills in 2010. His dog parents were The Duke of Delaware and Silver Steers Porsche.Â
Huckleberry attended Cornell University with his mom and adventured all over the country with her for years before coming home to Syracuse.
His favorite things to do were eat snackies, go on adventures and walkies with his mom, chew on sticks and play in the yard, go swimming, run on mountain bike trails, go on walks with his granny, and go to Dunkin' Donuts to get his snooty donuts every day in his senior years.
Huckleberry passed away peacefully at 14.5 years old, at home, in his mom's arms under the Christmas tree.
Amelia was destined to be a dog trainer from a young age. She has been working with dogs since she was just a kid and even took it a step further--she would hold agility shows with her own dogs and sell tickets to neighbors to come watch her perform with her dog.Â
Amelia is from Syracuse, NY and has spent most of her life here. She spent a couple years in Boston recently, came back to Syracuse, and immediately found a job with us at Huckleberry--a perfect fit.
Amelia has shown an aptitude for training and behavioral work with dogs since her first day on the job, and she currently is our most advanced structured handler and Assistant Trainer to Olivia. She is also our Head Hiker. You can find her spending at least half her weekly hours in the woods with dogs. You will see her in various locations throughout the county, too.
Amelia is involved in basic services like walks and hikes, but you will also meet her at behavioral consultations with Olivia, doing leash training, basic training, off leash and hiking training, e-collar work, exposure training (day trains), and more.
You'll also meet her Assistant, Montiview aka Monty an English Springer Spaniel. Monty helps keeps everyone in line on hikes, is an honorary doodle on our doodle pack, and acts as a neutral demo dog to help us with nervous dogs who don't love dog-on-dog interaction.
Robyn has always loved animals from a young age; from horse back riding to always having multiple cats and dogs at home. She even owned her own horse!
She’s from a small town in upstate NY, Ogdensburg, and she graduated from SUNY Oswego. She then pursued a career in the restaurant and hospitality industry. After having her daughter, Maeve, she needed a change of pace and a different work/life balance and took a scary step leaving the corporate world behind and hasn’t looked back since! She loves the everyday, outdoor exercise and relationship building with pets to enrich their lives--and their owners lives.
You can usually find Robyn in the southern part of the country like Marcellus, Onondaga Hill, and Skaneateles. She is our Operations Support Manager and supports the daily operation throughout our entire service area.