Ali Weihl has always had a passion for animals. Starting in high school, she was intent on training marine mammals, so she spent one summer volunteering at the Georgia Aquarium, got her scuba certification, and spent another summer as an intern at the Pittsburgh Aquarium. While at the Pittsburgh Aquarium, she assisted the head penguin-keeper. Then, that same summer, as she worked with a dog and horse trainer in Western Pennsylvania, her passion turned from marine mammals to dogs because of her ability to be more hands-on and utilize more positive reinforcement techniques. After graduating from Saint Vincent College (Latrobe, PA) with a degree in Biology, she moved to Georgia in June of 2013.

Brianne has always had a love for animals and teaching. She went to college for Early Childhood Education and worked as an elementary school teacher. Brianne has also worked in rescue for several years, often fostering dogs with behavioral challenges and taking time to find them the right home. Brianne started attending training classes with her fosters at local training facilities and after this, she decided to combine her passion for animals and teaching by working to become a dog trainer. 

Livvy is one of our administrative assistants and is currently a CCA apprentice. She’s always loved animals but became interested in dog training and sports after adopting her dog Trixie who came with some behavioral challenges. After being a client for some time she began working as one of our admins, and later became our rat momma and caretaker for our barn hunt rats. 

Rachel Stroud Anderson only began owning dogs when she became an adult. When she was attending the University of Georgia for a degree in Music Education, she adopted her first dog Sasha. She immediately began learning about dogs and dog behavior. The classes she was taking at the time (educational psychology and learning theory) started to have some overlap with her hobby of training Sasha. 

Rachel Emery has been passionate about dogs and dog behavior for many years and jumped at the opportunity to work full time with the dogs of Canine Country Academy as the daycare and boarding manager starting in the summer of 2012. After the closing of our daycare and boarding services she transitioned to auditing and assisting in a variety of classes at CCA.

Victoria has always loved animals big and small. She gained an interest in animal behavior while in college and studied the subject whenever possible. Upon getting her lab, Eve, she started doing training classes and fell in love with dog training overall.  She was originally a student of CCA who decided she wanted to be more involved in the community after enjoying our classes and seminars with Eve. She became one of our administrative assistant to join the team and ultimately decided to enter our apprenticeship program. After completing the apprenticeship she decided to stay on as a member of the team.