Meet the Professional Dog Trainer
My name is Jessica Nettles. I am the owner of SCIENCE Dog Training, LLC. Dog training and behavior are a passion of mine! I started my own business because I wanted to help others achieve well trained and happy dogs that can have a better quality of life with being set up with success with training, games, and play!
I started out by bringing a very special dog named Serendipity from the Titusville SPCA shelter to classes because she was anything but serene while in the shelter. Bringing her to classes helped her become more adoptable and built up her confidence. I eventually found out that she was happily adopted after shortly finishing 2 sets of classes with her.
During all of that, I adopted Belgian malinois/german shepherd mix, who was 4.5 years old. He is in the picture with me. Despite the rescue saying he was perfect, (walked nicely, got along with all animals, was medium size, stated he was only German shepherd until I paid the $300 nonrefundable and found out he was mostly Belgian malinois and more) he was far from their description, had behavioral issues, lacked confidence, and saw the world in a very pessimistic way. I started bringing him to classes after I realized he needed training if he was going to have any quality of life at all and not be a bite risk. I brought him classes to help build confidence in him, which helped his mental health and optimism of the world since he lacked the confidence to handle most situations.
He was extremely dog reactive. We worked our way up to being in a basic skills class where we could work in a corner across the room from the class and he could happily ignore the other dogs and could focus on his training with me. I also worked on cooperative care skills to help him have a better vet experience before I knew that Fear Free coorperative care was already an initiative that was just starting. Now at almost 12 years old, he is not as dog reactive as he used to be. He can be in a waiting room at the vet's without having a meltdown and leaves the vet happy, even with the cone of shame on!
During all this time, I started looking into more training with webinars and seminars on my own outside of the classes as I wanted to expand my training knowledge even more. Soon after, I was offered the position to apprentice and taught classes at the dog training school. I even wrote a couple of classes for the school and even started day training school, or what they called Day Enrichment.
I have worked with all dogs of different sizes and breeds from volunteering at the SPCA and at the dog training school. I parted ways with the school after it was not a healthy environment to work in. I have my Pro Dog Trainer through Absolute Dogs that is based in the UK. I am also working on testing for my PCT-A credentials from PPAB (Pet Professional Accreditation Board), which is through The Pet Professional Guild. They are a force free and positive reinforcement guild.
I continue my education in my free time to expand my knowledge. There are a few things that I am also currently working on to expand my services. One activity is that I have joined a mentorship. This mentorship is with Tabitha Davies. The goal of my mentorship is to expand my knowledge of the hard cases that need specialized and that most trainers are not quipped to handle, like resource guarding, reactivity of all kinds, dog aggression, multi household dog issues/aggression, and more. Then I plan to get my PCBC-A to earn the title of behavioral consultant through the Pet Professional Guild.
I am also learning more cat behavior to help clients that may not know where to look but still need help with their cats. Believe it or not, some cats like training too! Before my youngest cat passed in December 2024 at the young age of 4 years old, we earned him a trick title! He loved training with his meals and earning his food!
I am a former vet nurse student from Eastern Florida State College. I had to drop the program due to some disabilities. The knowledge I learned while in school has been invaluable information to help with addressing behavior issues and aid with training. These disabilities do not keep me from dog training. I look at it as my disabilities give me an advantage of understanding how to adjust training to each individual owner as I realize everyone has different mental and physical needs.
Now, I want to share my passion with helping you and others understand their dogs better while helping build a deeper bond!! I would love to help you reach your goals!