SEQUIM — More than 100 people attended a celebration in Tokyo to honor Terry Ryan, president and founder of Legacy Canine Behavior and Training in Sequim.
Ryan has been traveling to Japan to teach classes and establish humane dog training in the country.
She was recognized by the Japanese Animal Hospital Association at a ceremony early this month at the Keio Plaza Hotel for her 20 years of working in Japan teaching the classes, she said Sunday.
She began working in Japan in 1990 after a group of veterinarians and dog trainers visited some classes she had given in Pullman.
“They were amazed that people trained their own dogs,” she said.
“At that time, dogs in Japan were trained through professional vets, and they didn’t like that people had to do without their dogs for four to six weeks — that is too much time.”
The first seminar she gave was attended by about 1,000 people, she said.
After that many of them would return with a mix of new people.
“I felt that I wasn’t giving a good foundation to the new people, and I wasn’t challenging those returning enough, so I proposed a continuing education program, and I am on contract doing that now,” she said.
Ryan began her career as a trainer as a dog owner.
“I was a young married person, and my husband and I got a German shepherd puppy, and we were kind of teaching him tricks and such,” she said.
“A woman who lived near us said she was taking her dog to training classes and asked if I wanted to go along.”
Ryan and her husband, Bill, were living in Albuquerque, N.M., along with their dog, Honcho, at the time.
“I said that my dog didn’t really need any training — little did I know — but I said I’d go along for the fun of it,” she said.
After the class, she asked if she could become an apprentice for the trainers.
That was in 1967, and she is still enjoying the career, she said.
Since Honcho, she has trained golden cocker spaniels, other German shepherds, mixed breeds and foster dogs — as well as her current dog, Brody, an English cocker spaniel.
In addition to training dogs — and their owners — at her business in Sequim, Ryan has written for several national dog magazines including the American Kennel Club Gazette, Dog Fancy, Off Lead and Clean Run Agility.
She was appointed to the behavior and training advisory board of the American Humane Society in 2010.
__________
Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
