Meet The Team
At The Exceptional Pet, loving dogs is a given, but great training takes more than that.
The People Behind The Exceptional Pet
Our dog trainers bring real-world experience, professional education, and a commitment to doing what’s best for every dog and every family.
After completing at least 300 hours of hands-on dog training, our trainers pass the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT) exam, demonstrating their knowledge and dedication to professional standards.
Our approach is modern, humane, research-backed, family-focused, personalized, flexible, cooperative, and effective. Most importantly, we help dogs thrive while giving their families the skills and understanding they need to make everyday life together easier, happier, and more rewarding.
Our Exceptional Dog Trainers
Donna
Certified Professional Dog Trainer
Donna is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer through the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT), a CATCH Certified Dog Trainer (CCDT), an AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator, and a service and therapy dog trainer with The Exceptional Sidekick Service Dogs and Therapy Dogs.
Donna’s journey into dog training began with a deeply personal experience: living with a reactive dog. Experiencing the challenges and emotions that come with caring for a dog who does not always feel safe sparked her interest in understanding canine behavior and learning better ways to communicate with dogs in stressful or unfamiliar situations.
This firsthand experience gave Donna a deeper understanding of the complexities of canine behavior and tremendous empathy for the people navigating similar experiences. Having lived through the overwhelming, frustrating, and frightening behaviors of her reactive dog, Donna brings patience, compassion, and perspective to every dog-and-human team she works with.
Donna apprenticed with The Exceptional Pet. As an apprentice, she gained hands-on experience with a wide range of dogs with distinct training needs. From working with dogs displaying aggressive behaviors to one of her favorite parts of the job: helping new puppy owners feel confident and comfortable as they welcome a new family member into their home, Donna’s desire to understand the dog at the other end of the leash continues to shape her approach to training today.
Donna is passionate about animal rescue. She shares her life with two rescue dogs, Kasey Ann and Wilber James, as well as her two cats, Boots and Leo.
Sandy
Certified Professional Dog Trainer
Sandy discovered her love of dog training at The Exceptional Pet while training her Bernedoodle, Beau. What began with obedience classes soon grew to include Dogs Around Town, agility, and other activities that showed Sandy just how much dogs and their people can accomplish when training is built around trust, communication, and having fun together.
Her experience with Beau inspired Sandy to become a volunteer trainer with The Exceptional Sidekick, The Exceptional Pet’s sister nonprofit organization, where she helped train service dogs. As her interest in canine behavior and training continued to grow, Sandy completed a rigorous professional dog training program through CATCH Canine Trainers Academy and became a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT).
Sandy is a member of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT) and an AKC Canine Good Citizen, Trick Dog, and Temperament Test evaluator. She is also a certified AKC FIT DOG instructor and is committed to continuing her education so she can bring current, science-based training methods to the dogs and families she works with.
As an experienced private trainer and instructor for obedience and specialty group classes, Sandy practices positive reinforcement training and believes strongly in the science behind reward-based methods. Her approach goes beyond teaching basic skills. Sandy helps people build lasting relationships with their dogs through communication, consistency, adventure, and fun. She believes that strengthening the human-dog connection is an important part of creating a harmonious life together—and achieving training results that last.
A longtime area resident, Sandy has called the community home for approximately 40 years after moving to Naugatuck in her early 20s. When she isn’t working with clients and their dogs, she can usually be found training or adventuring with Beau and her Labradoodle, Finn. Rally, agility, parkour, and hiking are among their favorite activities, and Sandy is always looking for new ways to learn, train, and have fun with her dogs.
When she takes a break from her canine adventures, Sandy enjoys spending time and baking cookies with her adult children.
Jessica
Puppy Camp Trainer
Jess’s enthusiasm for dog training began while attending Sacred Heart University (SHU). A lifelong animal lover, she discovered a course that gave students the opportunity to help train service dogs and was immediately hooked. What started as an exciting way to work with dogs quickly grew into a passion for understanding behavior and helping dogs develop the skills and confidence they need to succeed.
Through The Exceptional Sidekick, Jess has gained extensive hands-on experience raising and training service dogs in training. These and other pet care experiences have taught her the importance of building trust, maintaining consistency, and creating clear communication between dogs and their handlers.
Jess’s interest in animal behavior has even taken her beyond the world of dogs. During an internship with the U.S. Navy’s Marine Mammal Program, she had the unique opportunity to train alongside dolphins and sea lions. Working with marine mammals further strengthened her understanding of animal behavior and the principles that make reward-based training effective across species.
Originally from Connecticut, Jess moved to Fairfield in 2023 to attend Sacred Heart University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology. She is continuing her education at SHU by pursuing a master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling, bringing together her interests in psychology, human behavior, and the powerful relationship between people and service dogs. Jess now shares her experience with the next generation of service dog trainers as a professor at Sacred Heart University, where she teaches the Service Dog Training course.
When she isn’t studying, Jess can often be found welcoming clients for Puppy Camp, teaching new tricks to Mango, one of the service dogs she is raising, or taking walks around the SHU campus with the university’s group of service dogs.