Our Team
Tiffany Whetzel
Tiffany is a certified professional dog trainer, instructor and founder/CEO of defender k9 LLC, a training and breeding facility located in central Ohio. She has been training for 9+ years and has graduated from the National K9 Learning Center in Columbus Ohio as well as Conifer Canines Dog College in Indiana. She holds credentials in basic and advanced obedience, behavior modification, utility and confidence, breed identification, puppy development, personal protection, decoying and drive development, narcotics and explosives detection, tracking and trailing, man trailing, human remains detection, service dog training, and police K-9 instructor. She has over 500 hours of practical hands-on experience for the specialties listed above.
Tiffany is a member of the Association of professional dog trainers (APDT), the National K9 Registry and the international Association of canine professionals (IACP). Continuing education allows her to stay up-to-date on the latest gold standards and safe practices of the training world. He holds a certificate for a behavioral consultant through the APDT and advanced canine behavior ACCS-KA through the American canine college knowledge assessed program. She holds a teaching certificate with Pet Tech for pet CPR and First Aid, as well as a trick dog instructor. She is an evaluator for the AKC Good Canine Citizen, STAR puppy, citizen in the community, and urban community. She is also a fetch judge and trick dog evaluator for the AKC as well.
Tiffany has been raising and training German Shepherd dogs for almost a decade. Currently she has two German shepherds, Nova a three-year-old sable female and Eros a two-year-old sable male. She also has a rescue pitbull named Nola who was born without her front legs and came to her from the Rescued Rollers - Special-Needs dog Rescue in Galion Ohio. Tiffany enjoys all dog breeds and teaches group lessons at her local dog club and other facilities. She also teaches at the local community centers on a variety of different dog topics.
Tod Whetzel
When he is not working his full-time job as a firefighter, Tod is the guy that makes everything happen. It is his job to maintain our facility. He builds, creates spaces, makes repairs and helps out in the daily operation of taking care of dogs. He is willing to take on any task and is definitely the backbone of our business. Tod has enjoyed dogs since a young age when he got a cocker spaniel named Champ. He enjoys seeing the progression and learning that dogs go through and has a special interest in the working dogs.
Our Facility
Located just outside of south west Columbus, OH, our 1200 square foot indoor training facility provides a distraction free learning environment and protects against the elements of the weather. It hosts an indoor kennel room that houses the dogs in our board and train programs.
The outdoor kennels are attached to the 3500 square foot confidence/training yard where the dogs can learn the confidence of the agility equipment, added distractions, or just having free or playtime.
Our agility equipment has the proper contact zones that is required for AKC trials and includes: the dog walk, varying sizes of hurdles, the teeter totter, a 16 foot tunnel, the a frame, weave poles, and platforms.
Cleanliness is the utmost importance here and the facility and kennels are clean daily with a 256 kennel solution. The grounds are sprayed quarterly for parasites and fleas.
Visiting
You can make an appointment to tour our facility and see the day-to-day operations. Simply fill out the contact me form and indicate you would like to visit our facility. We will contact you to set up an appointment
Our Training Success Stories
Cooper the German Shepherd at the beginning of his stay for our 7 day residency program.
This is Cooper again after a 7 day residency with Defender K9. He can heel with an automatic sit, sit and down at the side, sit and down in motion, sit and down at the front, and come. Cooper also can do a 2+ minute down/sit stay and knows a place command. He was introduced to the stand the day of this video.
This is our 22 month old Czech working line shepherd, Nova, practicing some off leash commands. She is demonstrating a heel with automatic sit, sit/down at the side, sit/down from a distance, sit/down in motion, finish, stand, square off 90 (finding the heel position), right side, and come. She is also demonstrating responding to hand signals only. These are advanced off-leash obedience commands that are taught at Defender K9 that would combine a 2 Week basic obedience residency AND the Off-leash package.