Today we’d like to introduce you to Miranda Hitchcock
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
We met at Austin Animal Center, where Miranda was the Operations Manager and Michele was a Behavior Specialist. We saw so many dogs come in with behavior issues- from dog reactivity to extreme fear to more “naughty” and overexcited behavior. And in a large portion of these cases, we’d say “if we’d only gotten to this dog last year…” or “if we’d only gotten to work with him as a puppy…” we’d be working with a much different dog. We knew we weren’t getting to these dogs quickly enough. But we also knew that dog training and behavior just isn’t accessible to everyone in our community. Most professional training is expensive. The field is unregulated, so there are unqualified and sometimes unethical trainers who will promise quick fixes and make things worse. We also know that there are many barriers to training even for those who want it- like language barriers, transportation, and finding the right fit. We knew that to really make dog training available to our whole community, we would have to dig deep to find solutions to these challenges.
So we founded Every Dog as a 501c3 nonprofit organization to help overcome these hurdles. We hope that Every Dog will serve as a hub for dog training and behavior information in Austin. We regularly offer free webinars from local and national experts. We offer sliding-scale and low-cost private training options, and work with other trainers and rescue groups to collaborate. We are committed to finding ways to provide behavior support to people who normally wouldn’t reach out to a trainer. We’re here to offer science-based, ethical resources for dog owners, and to be a trusted source for referrals and information.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It has definitely not been a smooth road! We publicly launched in February last year, so just a few weeks after our announcement, lockdown began. This meant that many of our planned events, workshops, classes, etc. were suddenly off the table. We spent the beginning of the pandemic trying to offer free services and checking in with our local trainer network to see how they were managing. For most of 2020, we offered free training sessions for anyone who needed them, aware that the pandemic had changed many families’ lives. The pandemic also led to a delay in getting our 501c3 status, but we were thrilled to finally get it and be “official!”
As you know, we’re big fans of Every Dog Behavior and Training. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Every Dog Behavior and Training is committed to providing accessible, inclusive dog training and behavior resources to the Austin community. We look forward to a time when professional, ethical dog training and behavior support is accessible for all of Austin’s dogs. We’re all about reaching the thousands of dogs in our area who don’t typically receive professional behavior support, often due to finances, accessibility, or lack of awareness. Because we’re a non-profit, we’re all about serving as a hub and connecting people to resources. Yes, we provide our own training- but we also keep in touch with local trainers and try to leverage the collective expertise of this community. We’re here to reach the people who need us, even if they don’t know it. And we want to make it EASY for families to get help with their dogs. We provide individual training and have free webinars twice a month on a variety of behavior topics. In the future, we look forward to running lots of fun classes, too!
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
We LOVE working with people. We want to work with rescues, shelters, and all of the places people get their dogs. We want veterinarians, dog professionals, and puppy parents to know we’re here as a trusted source of information! We will make sure you get the right info and get connected to training support that fits your needs. We love collaborating with other dog-related businesses that support humane, science-based training. The more people who know about us, the more people we can help- so we appreciate it so much when folks talk about us to their friends! Check us out on Facebook and Instagram, and if you have an idea on collaboration, we’d love to hear it!
Contact Info:
- Email: info@everydogaustin.org
- Website: www.everydogaustin.org
- Instagram: @everydogaustin
- Facebook: @everydogaustin
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCBmBPbysEcO7PvxcuhvsNQ
Image Credits
Sarah Jurgensen Throop
