Living The Red Life - From Family Chaos to a 30-Year Dog Empire

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

What does it take to build a business that survives economic crashes, family challenges, industry disruption, and nearly losing everything? In this episode of Living The Red Life, the leadership team behind A Canine Experience shares how a family-run dog training business grew into a respected operation celebrating 30 years in business. Trina Eddy, Andrea Kelley, Jessica Baer, and Autumn Baer reveal the mindset shifts, business strategies, service dog training innovations, and leadership lessons that helped them navigate adversity while continuing to grow. From scaling operations and implementing automation systems to training service dogs and mentoring future trainers, this conversation explores what it really takes to build a lasting business and create impact through purpose-driven entrepreneurship.Key TakeawaysWhy leadership matters more than control when training dogs and leading teams.How adapting to market changes helped the business survive multiple economic downturns.The importance of building systems and automations to scale efficiently.Why successful dog training starts with educating owners, not just training dogs.How resilience and continuous learning create long-term business success.Notable Quotes"Dogs simply do what works best to serve their purposes.""What we need to do is make what we want what they want.""If it's not working, make a change.""Excellent trainers do the basics really well.""We need to hire differently if we want to grow."Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

People think that their dogs know way more than they do. Like they didn't spend the time training them and just expect them to know things. Their expectations are super unrealistic when they get a dog. Dogs simply do what works best to serve their purposes. And what we need to do is make what we want, what they want, everything's building. Trina and Andrea are co-founders of a canine experience. A family-run dog training organization focused on obedience, behavior, and competitive dog sports, alongside co-founders, Jessica and Autumn.

When I watched the dog whisper, is that real? The thing about the dog whisper, it did open people's eyes a little bit to understand a little bit more about leadership. We definitely have a little different technique. You know, you can do some stuff quick, make it look good for the cameras, but the longevity of it is a little bit different. They don't show the follow-through that has to happen. Like, it's not going to happen that quick.

And I think some people became very unrealistic. thinking that we can just take your dog and fix it like that. And it's like, no, that's just a start. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast. And I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the Red Life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast, the Red Life edition,

parentheses, mastermind edition for Insight Success. I am Regueteer's. joining me today after quite a quad experience. I have here with me from K9 Experience, Trina Eddie and Andrea Kelly. Is that correct? Yes. Ding, ding, ding.

Yay, Ray did the thing. Welcome to the experience. How are you? Great. Yeah. How do you feel? Tired? Yeah.

It's been a long whirlwind of a week. Oh, no. Welcome. You are officially graduated from the mastermind course of awesome. Oh! Yay! You get a shirt. You get a shirt.

Oh, wait. We're out of shirts. We're out of shirts. Darn. So you just finished filming your episode for Women in Power. It was quite an adventure because it was a family event. Tell us about what we are going to watch in your episode. What are we going to watch?

What are we going to experience? What did you all talk about? I mean, as a family business, there's always, you know, problems and good things. We all work together, but you're just going to see us talk about our journey through the years. It's of the business. We're getting ready to celebrate 30 years in the business. The week, next week, when we get back, we're doing a big celebration. So 30 years.

Yeah, 30 years of business. So it's been great. And family, family own and ran business. So it's been, yeah, you'll see us talk about our journeys. Right on. So, Tuna, when you hear 30 years, what goes on to your mind? Do you have the entire, like, relapse of the 30 years, just bam? It's impossible.

I'm only 25. Oh, right on. You're also a time traveler. Hell yeah. Right on. No, it's amazing feat. We've been through a lot to get here. It hasn't always been easy.

I mean, we have a great family, great family support. Yep. And, you know, my mom had to give us a great start to it. But that doesn't mean it's been any less difficult because things, you know, come up and you have to adapt. We have. And here we are. That has definitely been the lesson of today's adapting. But you've got furry friends, furry, furry,

angels that are essentially an extension of our souls. And would you like to introduce who's here, Wynon? This is Tonks. She is a four-year-old chocolate lab, the service dog in training for one of our wonderful clients. And so when we have this opportunity to fly out here, I told the owner, I said that way we can do a practice flight and really immerse her in service dog life. And it's really been great because it's helping us figure out some of the things.

we need to go back and tweak and kind of firm up a little bit with her, but overall, she's been doing fantastic. Can you for folks that are watching or listening, just talk to me like a five real service dog. So service dog, animal, helping a person with a disability by tasking. So they will do tasks to either alert to an episode or they might task to help them after an episode. One of the tasks she's doing is to help find, like, find an exit. So the owner, if she gets a bit dissociated, then she can tell talks to exit and having her lead her out to an exit. She also does what we call deep pressure therapy, where she'll come and, like,

lay in her lap, which that, that pressure just helps calm you. And, of course, she loves that because she's a lab. And then just, you know, even having her with her, the owner noticed a just in her ability to work through life, just having her dog with her. Absolutely. But they're a little more magical than that. I've seen tons of videos of service dogs predicting earthquakes or someone fainting or someone having a heart attack. How are these furry angels so aware of what's really happening in that fifth dimension

that's speaking to the third? That's a good question. I mean, a lot of what I work with is the odor detection. And a lot of the medical alert dogs that we train, like for diabetes. seizures, pots, migraines, crones, they're all based off of the chemical, like the change in the odor. And so we actually take saliva samples for training when, say, the diabetic has a blood sugar level, like below 70. We'll actually have them put saliva on a gauze, and that's what we use for training. And so what we're doing is very specific.

A lot of dogs will just naturally pick up on anxiety and stress and will, interrupt it naturally, but that's not considered a task in the service dog world. It needs to be a train task. So if we teach the dog to respond to say pulling the hair or scratching the skin or, you know, some other anxiety. Sure, sure, sure. Things, then that becomes a train tax. Right on. There's two labs that live right across the street from us. And they're peculiar. They're so curious and every time I'm outside they kind of keep an eye on me and every time they're loose they always make an attempt to reach out

to me. I always feel like with your dogs here while we were filming I'm always kind of like a little chihuahua always like shaking like a little like anxiety induced I would say I'm upgrade to a pomeran I'm a little poperanian were they sensing the fact that I was just like on high alert making sure cameras were rolling that

you guys looked good sounded good I clearly was in a different mode while Lauren wasn't hers Lord wasn't theirs What do you feel were they sensing me and what was happening in the room? Maybe am I just thinking maybe the blue room? You know I think Tonks especially is very used to being in an environment where people are really busy and a little bit stressy and so I think for her she's just kind of like Yeah, this is just a day to day.

Now if it was the owner becoming really stressed and worked up then she would be more low likely to alert to her. Right on. She'll come up and like paw at her. Gotcha. I guess this is my next question was it's they're trained for their owner. This isn't their, just the service dog walks and goes, hey, I'm going to spot someone. No, no, no.

It's just like, no, I am loyal to my owner. Yeah. And some dogs might do it if they're close enough, you know, friends and family around. They might. But she, even when we practice like the alerting to interrupt behaviors, she knows when we're practicing. And you can tell that she's kind of like, yeah, I'll do it. but the owner says that when she actually is having an episode,

she does pick up an alert to it. And it's definitely more more vigorous, I guess, than when we practice. Sure. We talked, we spoke about this, Trina, offline where little tells, like their little wines, they're yons. This goes beyond. These are little signals, correct? Yeah, I mean, some of the things are their own stress relief,

but some dogs are just really in tune to what's going on. And, you know, some dogs will pick up on other people, especially if they're close. But, you know, naturally, that's what we're looking for is the dogs that naturally are really sensitive and sense those things. And then our training builds on those things. Got it. But the little stress line, the little yawn, the little shakeoffs that they do, those are all them releasing their own stress. Do different dog breeds have different personalities, different ideas of what reality is? Like how do different dog breeds function?

Absolutely. I mean, that goes back to genetics and what they're bred to do. And so not all dog breeds serve as a really good service dog prospects. That's a good omen. Because, you know, they're genetically inclined to like aggression or, you know, when we're looking for service dog, we want, like, Tonks is a great example of the energy level we want for most service dogs. Now Autumn's a little different. She's a professional trainer.

She likes a little more energy, but she can manage that. For both people, we're looking for, we want just enough energy that they'll work, but we want them to be calm enough that they can just relax for a long periods of time and not be a big burden on the owner as far as their needs go. So let's talk about your day-to-day and the family business. What is your North Star today? Your canine experience, business? Yes.

What happens there? What happens as this experience? What happens as far as what are we doing? Yeah. What do you do? What happens there? When I go to your website, what do I find? Photos of dogs?

Definitely photos of dogs. Yeah, well, our bread and butter is pet dogs, right? We love it if an owner comes in with a puppy, but that's not usually what we get. What we usually get is the teenager dog when they start to have issues, challenges, and stuff. When they come and their puppies, they're super dependent. they follow you around. They seem well trained. They're like, you're their world, they're everything.

And then they become little teenagers. And they're like, oh, you taught me come, but no, this is more interesting. So that's usually when we get them when they start having some challenges. Or we work with a lot of rescue dogs. So people adopt and they have challenges because they don't necessarily know what they're getting into when they adopt right away. Their true colors don't show. So lots of. of pet dog, you know, both just basic training and behavioral. We work with all sorts of

behavior problems, them mainly. And then we also work again with the service slides and we have like a co-training program where we work with owners to self-train their dogs. We go back and forth and guide them. And sometimes we will raise dogs to sell. We've only done a couple, but we're going home to three. Yes. Oh, nice. That we ended up picking up, Well, we're here in Florida, so that's all a funny story in and of itself. Very cool. But, yeah, that's the part of the business. We're really trying to grow.

And I also work with aspiring trainers to become trainers or start their own dog-related businesses. Wow, wow. What have you learned of the business and human nature through dogs in the last 30 years? Give us the short version. Dogs and human nature. Well, people... Is there a chance that we're going to make it, ma'am? The thing is, is that people think.

that their dogs know way more than they do. Like they didn't spend the time training them and just expect them to know things. Their expectations are super unrealistic when they get a dog. Sure. And the dogs need to be taught. They don't just come knowing and they're not doing it to be defiant. They just don't know better.

Dogs simply do what works best to serve their purposes and what we need to do is make what we want, what they want, everything's golden. I got to ask now that I've got two canine experts, when I watched a dog whisper, Is that real? Is he really? What is happening there?

You know, I think you take that one. Please. The thing about the dog whisper, it did open people's eyes a little bit to understand a little bit more about leadership. We definitely have a little different technique. Yeah, you know, you can do some stuff quick, make it look good for the cameras, but the longevity of it is a little bit different, right?

So, yeah, you can in an hour episode or whatever. you can make a good change, but does that mean that that led to the next day to the next year? Sure, sure. They don't show the follow-through that has to happen. Like, it's not going to happen that quick. And I think some people became very unrealistic thinking that we can just take your dog and fix it like that. And it's like, no, that's just a start. That's just a little bit of really what needs to happen in the big picture at home and just your life balance with your dog.

Right on. Is there different, do different trainers have different ways of, training like is there a philosophy or is there's just like one book to rule them all oh my goodness there's so many there's so many different ways to train dogs and we again we adapt to what the dog and what the owner needs and we have a lot of different knowledge and tools that we can use just you know to find what works for them yeah like we study with lots of different trainers to keep filling our toolbox well there are definitely trainers that are very far it's kind of like politics they're very very far one direction or another

is force, free, positive, only a whole spectrum to people that are plain abusive. You're absolutely right. You know, we fall in the middle, but way closer to the positive side, but we are not positive, only trainers by any means. But we work

with a lot of different trainers so we can change and adapt when we need to, when we see something that is different than what we've seen before. When something's not working, you've got to try something else. else or need to know what that something else is. So yeah, we've worked with lots and lots of different trainers who use different methods. And then in my dog trainers course, I actually hand those different methods, teach different tools and usage to those students.

That's awesome. Are all dogs trainable? I mean, oh, absolutely. Even if they've been through like, even if it's a, I don't know, like I would hate to be, I don't want to start another podcast. But if it's like a like a like a like a pit bull or like a very vision known to be. dog, but like, are they trainable? Can, or is, is, is, is their end to a, I'm sorry, can all dogs be trainable? I guess that's the question.

All dogs are trainable to a point, but you do have some genetics and, you know, their history of how they were raised, they all both play together, but there are genetics, but every dog can learn and you can, you can make improvements for sure. Age and age makes a difference to, like, you know, we've had dogs that come in just recently. they're like seven, eight years old. Yeah, they still learn and they've been free improvements, but it might have been a little bit of a struggle at first, but they ended up coming around and, you know, doing fantastic.

So every dog can learn. Right on. They can learn. But yeah, your success, if they have an aggression issue, there's a lot more to unpack about that. Right on. Right on. Yeah.

Yeah, you can definitely make improvements with the dogs. One of the big keys, though, is when you have like a pit bull, as you mentioned, is finding a way to release the natural drives of that dog. They are genetically inclined to certain things, and, you know, they need to go bite stuff. Like a husky needs to pull, run, or, you know, so you got to find ways to give them an outlet. And on a leash and just walking around does not give them the exercise or the mental stimulation that they need. Right on. I apologize for asking this question, but, you know, we, our own teammates. Jen, I'm not sure if you met her.

She adopted a corgi husky thing. And it's a gorgeous little dog, but it was a dog by a pit bull. Two masterminds ago, has she run out out of the middle of a mastermind and attend to poor Kai? Do dogs have that 1% of that moment where they can become that predator, like that attack? Or is it just specific breeds? Can it happen at any time? Or is that something that can really be trained and you're just like docile? That it's definitely somewhat breed related.

And it's more likely to happen with certain breeds. But also a dog's history. Like what have they been through? What did they learn? Like if they're on the streets and they learn that acting that way keeps them safe, like people leave them alone when they act that way, then that's a learned thing that can sometimes, you know, be improved and sometimes eliminated with some dogs.

Sure, sure. But some of the things, you know, some of the dogs are definitely more inclined to behave that way than others. Right. So it's very much like humans. It's a certain trigger, maybe a certain noise. It can really spark anything. Let's circle back and talk about your episode. Like I said earlier, this was a very family-oriented episode.

Who are we going to introduce meat on the episode? They're actually not sitting here with us, but they're in the studio audience. There's thousands of you watching. Hello, everyone. So you have Jessica, which is one of the other sisters. Right on. So Trina and I are sisters. Jessica's the other sister.

And then Autumn, who is Trina's daughter. Cool. As well, you'll meet Fury, Autumn's service dog. Right on. Well, I appreciate that preview. So how do you all work together collectively? Tell us about the daily tasks and how this works. We all have our certain things besides like the dog training,

certain things that we take on. So I like, I do. you know, payroll and bookwork and schedule and Trina does a lot of the marketing stuff. Right on. Does some of the ordering stuff. Jessica manages like the boarding, just the dogs are doing boarding. So we all have just our different tasks that we take on and work. And then we have things that we work together on as well and bounce ideas off each other

and collaborate that way as well. About just over a year ago, I think I made a shift in my position and took on more of the CEO role. in organizing things in the program development and marketing ads and the automations and all the back-end stuff, which is actually quite ironic and funny considering I have a reputation about computers and how I always break them,

they don't work for me. But I have saved us, I mean, uncountable hours through building these automations. But I have a great support team and program to back me up, and that's why it's happening. So I'm assuming you guys are all working together in an actual place, an actual location for the full experience. What happens there? Do folks come in with their dogs or like walk me through the whole journey of like when I opened that first door?

Yeah. I mean, we're there. We have our dogs that come in for training for different programs. We have people who drop dogs off for the day. And we have, you know, our office and a classroom. We have a little over five acres there. So we, I mean, you come in and most likely. Is it just dogs or do you have a lot of? other like animals there. They're not related to the business, but there's some chickens. I was going to say. A horse. A horse.

You know, there's things like that. No, no elephants. Not yet, though. Yeah. And so, you know, we're out working dogs all day. We have got staff that's in the kennel just taking care of like the day-to-day stuff, feeding dogs, cleaning up after them, you know, things like that. How do you hire for that?

What do our employees look like? What are requirements? Like, learn how to scoop poop or? Be good at, cleaning yeah yeah that is something that we've kind of fought because we've hired in the past and it's a tough journey and you had asked before we started this about if we had any takeaways from this week yes ma'am one of the things that i realize is that we are looking at hiring completely wrong and so what we've done in the past is try to hire trainers and teach them to be trainers and then they leave and start

their own business or we'll start them as a kennel employee and they move into training and then And we do have one non-family trainer who's stuck with us. And she takes great pride in ownership in the business. So we're really fortunate to have her. But one of the things that occurred to me throughout the mastermind this week was that rather than trying to replace us as trainers, we need to hire out all the things we don't want to do, like me being, you know, stuck on a computer all the time. Hosting podcasts.

And we need and basically hire all. that admin stuff, all that back end stuff we don't want to do, put us in the position of training and hire each of us assistant trainers to help us be more efficient in our training because we have to find ways where we can work more efficiently because we're kind of tapped out, you know, where we're at. We only have so many hours, there's so many, only so many of us, and we need to be able to bring in more income. So that was something that occurred to me this week. We're hiring wrong. We need to hire differently. Yes. Yeah, right on. Well, I'm, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Friday.

I left him speechless. Wow, what a moment. Thank you. Where do people learn more about you all? Like, is there a website, or are you all, like, super active on social media? Are you doing live TikToks? Like, what is your war strategy when it comes to social media? Yeah, I do a lot on Facebook.

It's the one that I actually understand somewhat. But we are active on Instagram, TikTok, Autumn set up a TikTok over there. LinkedIn. We do have a YouTube channel that we probably should get more, you know, do more with. But there's only so much time in the day. So we're on all the socials.

And then we also have the website. Right on. As well. Yeah, you got to find a videographer out there that just loves furry creatures and we'll definitely just do pro bono work for you just for the experience. And then they'll start charging you or whatever. You start paying them. But you really should actively, like every single late night show hosts

has always had animals on segments or a trainer, and it always gets the highest ratings because you're getting that genuine, authentic reaction to an animal that has absolutely no idea that you're on some podcast called The Red Life, and they're just doing an amort job of servicing our, not just as as humans beings, but our souls and just our mental health. And them being with me alone was just like, wow,

I definitely need to find my furry creature, even though I've recently turned into a cat person. Yeah. Well, another thing that I really enjoy doing is helping people match up with the right dog. Oh, there you go. The biggest challenge, I think, or the best start is to start with the right dog in the first place, right? And so that's one thing we do is help, you know, I have a book. And I wish I would have brought a copy of it, but I didn't.

But in my book, it actually has a whole section on choosing a breeder, choosing the right puppy, temperament testing, health tests, all the things that I look for in a good quality. breeder, but also it's not just about the health of the dog. It's also about the personality to match your personality, your lifestyle, your activity level, right? I mean, that's why Rudy has greyhounds, right? Yeah, yeah. He needs runners. Oh, you're talking about dogs, not me, sorry.

That was a natural joke. Wow. Gosh, we can definitely talk forever about dogs and furry creatures and obviously masterminds. But really, where can folks find you? Give me a dot com. What's the easiest way folks can? get a hold of you. It's our

well our website, www. www.acan-I-N-E.com. So it's www.a-k-9.com. The word canine is spelled out. It's very challenging.

K-N-I-N-E. C-A-N-I-N-E. So A-C-A-N-I-N-E. I play devil's out of it. Yeah. Yes, and then you can contact us through our website there.

And we have a phone number that you can text. which is like our big woo thing that's made our lives so much easier and that's 360-488-0-639. Oh man, I can hear the jingle. I can actually do that right now with my AI and I can create a jingle right now. I'm just kidding.

With that, this is Trina Adi and Andrea Kelly. Andrea Kelly. It's okay. I'm just at this point just trolling myself. With that, thank you so much for your time and energy and what a way to wrap up in another amazing mastermind.

here at Inside Success for Insects success I am Ray Gutierrez and this is the K9 experience