Melissa has always been involved with animals starting as a child with dogs, cats, and horses.  She has been a registered veterinary technician since 2002 and specialized in several areas including behavior and zoological medicine.  She is a frequent presenter at national veterinary conferences focusing on behavior, training, internal medicine, and exotic animals. 

 

Her competition career began in the horse world showing western pleasure and driving horses.  She currently competes with her dogs in a wide variety of sports, earning hundreds of titles and several national rankings. Melissa and her dogs have performed halftime shows for UGA football and basketball in addition to film projects.  She teaches classes in agility, obedience, dock diving, conformation handling, and is an AKC Canine Good Citizen and Trick Dog Evaluator.

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