IAABC Board of Directors

Sarah Filipiak, CDBC

President

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Sarah Filipiak is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant who started her Athens, Ohio-based training and consulting business, Best Pets Dog Training LLC, in 2001. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, after which she worked as a newspaper reporter, then editor, for six years.

She is a member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, has served on the board of her local all-breed dog rescue organization since 2001, is a founding member of the Athens, Ohio Dog Parks Committee and performs behavior evaluations for local humane organizations. She completed an internship with Sue Sternberg in May 2004 and has attended numerous presentations on dog behavior and training, including those by Kathy Sdao, Jean Donaldson, Patricia McConnell, Joel Walton and Ian Dunbar. A former AKC obedience competitor, Sarah and Kessel Von Fichtenwald, her first clicker-trained dog, earned a High In Trial award Kessel's first time in the ring. Sarah has been quoted in the Popular Dogs Training Series magazines for German Shepherds and for Rottweilers. Besides behavior and psychology, her areas of interest include communication, philosophy and theology, technology and all things equine.

Elise Gouge

Vice-President

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Elise initially began her career in social services working with children and their families. For many years she worked extensively with families in a clinical capacity, navigating their troubled paths to find ways to live together in harmony and without stress.

Armed with years of clinical expertise, Elise began working with pets and their people full time in 2004. She had the wonderful opportunity to study dog behavior with some of the best trainers in the world and eagerly participated in every training seminar available, including the wonderful Instructor Training Course with Sue Sternberg and Pia Silvani. Elise's professional background includes managing training and behavior programs in shelters and doggy day cares, training animals ranging from primates to horses to domestic pets, mentoring novice trainers, presenting at national conferences and guest lecturing at universities on animal behavior. A believer in trying anything she is going to teach others she has also competed in various dog sports such as herding, Rally, and agility. She is currently preparing for competition obedience trials. To see Elise in action, check out some of her media appearances on Animal Cops: Houston!

She holds a Bachelors Degree in Psychology and a Masters Degree in Community Health Education. She is a Certified Canine Good Citizen Evaluator through the AKC, a Certified Professional Dog Trainer through the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and a Certified Dog and Cat Behavior Consultant through the International Association for Animal Behavior Consultants. A high percent of her practice focuses on aggression and behavior problems. Elise has been the Vice-Chair of the Awards Committee for the APDT for several years and recently joined the Board of Directors of the IAABC. She actively volunteers with New England Border Collie Rescue and happily has three border collies of her own.

Marjie Alonso

Executive Director

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Marjie Alonso, CDBC, CPDT, is a professional dog trainer and behavior consultant living in Somerville, MA., with her two dogs, two sons and very understanding mate. Marjie first started dog training in the late 1970s, eventually starting her own full time training and behavior consulting business, City Dog Training, LLC. Marjie serves as behavioral consultant for the New England Dog Training Club, the oldest AKC club in the US, and for several dog rescue groups and shelters, providing evaluations, rescue dog acclimation programs, one-on-one training sessions, training plans and behavior modification programs. Marjie is a member of the America Humane Association's Advisory Board for Companion Animal Behavior and Training.

Marjie is a contributing expert trainer for Dogtime.com and the Australian site DogTraining.net. Marjie takes her continuing education quite seriously, and attends many seminars, workshops and advanced internships each year in the field of dog behavior, behavior modification techniques, training and temperament evaluation and assessment. Recent seminars include those by Sue Sternberg, Suzanne Clothier, Patricia McConnell, John Rogerson, Clicker Expo, APDT Annual Conference, Kathy Sdao, Pia Silvani, Jean Donaldson and many more. Marjie is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC) with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, a Certified Pet Dog Trainer (CPDT), an AKC Canine Good Citizen evaluator, and a Professional Member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT).

Ann Withun, BS, CPDT-KA

Secretary

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Ann graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY with a B.S. in Mathematical Sciences. She started her career as a US Army Officer stationed in Germany, and is currently a Quality Manager and LEAN Continuous Improvement Change Agent for a global logistics company. Ann is a proud associate member of the IAABC, and is grateful to have found such a wonderful organization on her journey toward becoming the best full-time dog training instructor and behavior consultant that she can be. Ann currently teaches classes at Fieldwood Dog Training Center, and is particularly passionate about her clicker-based group reactive dog class. Ann is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer – Knowledge Assessed, a professional member of APDT, a board member and Director of Competition & Titling for Dog Scouts of America, and a longtime volunteer with local rescue. She and her dogs compete in Agility, Rally-Obedience, Freestyle, and IMPROV - but while titles and ribbons are nice, their favorite activity will always be just spending time together in the woods.

Eric Goebelbecker, CPDT-KA

Communications Director

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Eric Goebelbecker, CPDT-KA, owns and runs Dog Spelled Forward while also working as software engineer on Wall Street. Eric started working closely with rescue dogs 10 years ago as a volunteer and decided that he wanted to change careers almost on the spot. Since then he has attended several advanced apprenticeships, courses, and seminars, and worked as a trainer at St. Hubert's. As a software engineer and technology executive Eric has worked on or around Wall Street for 20 years. He co-founded a small company that changed the way market data is distributed to financial institutions. He also worked as a systems engineer designing and installing trading floors for several major banks and financial institutions, was the Director of Systems Engineering for Telerate and has run several development teams. Eric is also a sporadic blogger at Dog Star Daily.

Jamie Whittaker

Chair, Parrot Division

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Jamie Whittaker and her husband, Barry, have owned and operated ABC Pets since 1988. They are members of American Federation of Aviculture, the Avicultural Society of America and the National Parrot Rescue and Preservation Foundation. Jamie also teaches classes on living with and caring for parrots. Jamie is an aviculturist and advocate for parrots in the home. Her unique experience allows her an opportunity to know birds in all stages of their lives. Helping people to understand and work with their bird's natural behaviors has enabled many parrots to stay in their homes long term. Jamie has been certified as a parrot behavior consultant through IAABC since 2006.

Laura Tyler

Education Chair

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As the CEO of Total Teamwork Training LLC, Laura designs and oversees the development of dog/owner training and behavior, educational programs and classes as well as outreach programs for communities in Northwest Colorado. Her company includes six instructors and interns. Offering continuing education workshops, Laura works closely with her staff to maintain the highest and most current standards in training and professional ethics in all aspects of client/student/pet relationships. She works privately with in home training and behavior modification programs and visits schools promoting positive training methods. She also provides court ordered behavior evaluations and acts as an advocate for dogs in trouble with the law.

With her English Springer Spaniel, Callie, she competed in AKC obedience trials, tracking trials and agility competitions in past years. Currently she is training with her Rat Terrier, Skippy, earning an AKC Canine Good Citizen award, Therapy Dog International certification, Delta Society certification and an AKC Rally Novice title. Laura and Skippy volunteer in a school reading program for children.

Laura has earned her CPDT-KA credentials through the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers. She is also an AKC Canine Good Citizen and AKC Puppy S.T.A.R. evaluator. She is a professional member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT), and has published articles in "The APDT Chronicle of the Dog". She stays current in her knowledge base with continued study, attendance and participation in workshops, seminars and college level classes in the field of canine behavior, learning, consulting and teaching. She currently serves on the Education Committee for the IAABC.

Guadalupe Bermejo

Board Member

Guadalupe is the owner of Communication Féline, a company devoted to solving feline behaviour problems based on the South Shore of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

She is a veterinarian-referred consultant and a Certified Tellington TTouch Practitonner, the only one in Canada using this method exclusively with cats. She is a member of the Guild of Certified TTouch Practitioners and a Professional member of the Animal Behavior Management Alliance. For years, she volunteered for the largest no-kill cat shelter in Montreal. She has socialized hundreds of feral cats and kittens and has worked closely with their owners in order to make adoptions work. She provides in-home, telephone and e-mail consultations with clients from across Canada, France, Mexico and South America. In addition to her consultation services, she offers feline behaviour workshops.

Continuing her education in feline behavior is a priority, and it includes participating regularly in seminars, conferences, teleconferences, distance learning and webinars.

She lives in Longueuil, Quebec, with her husband and their beautiful cats.