I’ve been involved with animals my entire life. At a very young age, I helped my father train our dogs to pull a sleigh. Later on, I trained the neighbour's dog to greet me at the bus stop on my way home from school.

Four years later, I trained our Boston Terrier for her advanced obedience title. After a few years of training dogs, I became a member of the Canadian Association for Professional Pet Dog Trainers and attended my first CEU in animal behaviour through various seminars, conferences, and private classes. This was in 1999. The following year, I was named the Quebec Regional Director for the CAPPDT. 

I’ve attended many seminars throughout the years and met some very influential people. Kayce Cover, Gary Priest, Dr. Raymond Coopinger and Dr. Eric Klinghammer, to name a few, are people I've had the pleasure to work with, translating their training manuals, terminology and conferences. Some became friends, others mentors. 

In 2003, I had the opportunity to spend the summer imprinting arctic wolf cubs (Canis lupus arctos) and working with a variety of wild animals at the Park Safari Zoo. The project culminated in a trip to California, USA, to work with animal behaviour specialists at the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park. Transferring wolf behaviour protocols and mastering different training techniques was on the agenda. That same year I became a member of the Animal Behaviour Management Alliance. From 2005 to its closing in 2008, I wrote for the French magazine Passionnément Chien. In 2007, I became a member of the International Association of Canine Professionals. My experience and insatiable curiosity allowed me to achieve, in the summer of 2008, a research praticum with the wolves of Wolf Park, Indiana, U.S.A. What a thrill !!!

Helping animals has always been my main preoccupation, so when Gary Priest said to me: When you put people and animals together you obtain instantaneous success, even if the animal fails, those words changed my life. They became my life's ultimate purpose. In 2009, I decided to go back to university and get a "human" degree. My objective is to help further the human-animal relationship through animal-assisted therapy. I plan to graduate from the Applied Human Science department at Concordia in 2013. 

Gaby Dufresne-Cyr, CBT