Essex County K9 Services

Meet our trainers/assistants.

In addition to our head trainer, Dave-see our `about us` page for bio and our Hunting trainer, Wayne-see our `hunt trial` page for bio, here are the other key players at Essex County K9 Services.
At any time, any of us are available to assist you with any questions or concerns. Please feel free to ask for help, afterall, that’s what we are here for!

Fern Walsh-

Fern is Dave’s wife of 20 years and assists Dave in areas of the business ranging from advertising, scheduling, accounting to actually instructing the Basic Obedience classes and the Saturday Intermediate classes. Fern`s love for dogs is evident and all the dogs know it, as they all wander over to her to say hello at somepoint while at class. Fern`s main goal is to continue to gain knowledge about dogs while enjoying the time spent with the students. She loves to see the dogs and handlers advance as each week progresses.

Colin Walsh-

Although Colin is still a teenager, he has spent the last five years learning from his father Dave everything he can about dogs. Together with his Rottweiler Athena, he has experiences most of us only dream of. His knowledge base extends beyond the basics into search and rescue tracking and protection work. He has a passion for helping troubled dogs showing aggression and is continuing to learn from Dave proper methods of rehabilitating dogs that need direction. He would like to continue with the family business and learn as much as he can to ensure the business continues on for years to come.

Stephanie Leipold-

Stephanie is relatively new to this type of training. She began taking a beginners course with us just over a year ago. She quickly realized how effective and fun this training is and began to involve herself as much as possible, moving onto the Intermediate and Advanced classes. Animals are Stephanie’s passion and most animals love her. She, in turn loves them. She has had a lot of experiance rehabing sick, injured or abused animals. One of her personal accomplishments is the successful training of a deaf dog, with various hand signals. She shares a strong bond with her dog Yrie, who is now 16 months old. When we realized that she shared our passion in training and helping dogs, we enthusiastically welcomed her as one of our staff. Stephanie is still active taking part in classes such as tracking, advanced stability and protection work. She can be seen around the business always lending a hand, either cleaning up or assisting Dave and Fern with the beginners classes.
“I still have much more to learn and life is about learning as much as you can in as many areas as you can. I enjoy helping people and their dogs learn as much as they can and succeed in their training. I am very passionate about animals and am learning more and more everyday from you guys.”

Sam Ammari-

Sam began training back in 2005 which is about the time he met Dave and Fern. He was looking for a school that handled difficult, nervous, shy and aggressive dogs believing that if an instructor could deal with these issues, then helping people and their dogs with no serious issues would be simple. As he progressed in his training he noticed that this type of training goes beyond “sit and stay”. A bond begins to form between a person and their dog. Training that does not need a treat or the sound of a bell or clicker or ball to drive your dog to do what you’ve asked of it. The dog will give 150% not sometimes, not half the time, but all of the time solely for that bond. They are more than happy to please us for a simple pat on the head or “good job” or “thank you”. In 2008 Dave and Fern invited Sam to join Essex County K9 not only as a friend but also a student, still taking part in advanced and high end training classes. Soon afterwards, Sam began assisting with the beginners classes knowing that we all can learn from eachother as well as learning from everyone that walks through our door. “I look forward to sharing my experiences with you as well as learning from yours.”