Allison began to study under a professional dog trainer as an apprentice for about a year while she continued working as a police officer, learning the concepts of basic and advanced obedience. During this time, Allison also fostered dogs from the City of Austin Animal Center. She asked for the worst behavior cases in the shelter and spent 3 months to a year rehabilitating each dog and then worked to get it adopted. Allison felt like her skills were most needed with these severe behavior cases and also found that if she could rehabilitate these--the toughest dogs in the city--that working with other dogs should come much more naturally. Over the 5 years that Allison ran this rescue program, she successfully rehabilitated and found homes for over 10 dogs.
After her first year of apprenticing Allison knew that this was the profession for her. Allison left law enforcement to co-own a professional full-time gundog training facility. Allison co-operated this 30-dog facility, advancing her skills in obedience, learning retriever training concepts, running dogs in hunt tests, and breeding and whelping. She learned blood trailing training and antler shed training, and because of her experience with the rescues, she was typically assigned the most challenging cases in the kennel for training. In 2014, after 4 years of co-ownership, Allison decided to strike out on her own and pursue her unique dog training interest, creating Legend Retrievers.
Allison also owns and operates a small photography business, specializing in sport dog photography. In 2014 Allison traveled to Corning, California as the official photographer of the Master Nationals. Allison's favorite part of her photography business is photographing her customer's dogs in training.
Mason
Mason takes a great deal of pride in calling himself a dog trainer! Although he doesn't solidify training with a leash in the training field, he is adept at reading dogs and communicating with them, and very effectiently teaching them to use their manners and obedience skills in real-life situations. Having lived his entire life in a dog training environment, Mason very naturally reads dogs' body language. He trusts dogs and lacks unnecessary fear, making him exceptional when it comes to socializing dogs with children for the first time. Mason very frequently helps in the field with steadying drills by throwing the ball or bumper while I hold and work the dog. I am blessed that Mason loves dogs, and although he has not taken on any real training responsibilities, he enjoys his role in our business and is exceptional at his job!
Our Dogs
We are blessed to have 4 field bred Labrador Retrievers: We have an 8 year old yellow male, Trouble, 6 year old chocolate female, Ginger, a 2 year old Fox Red Lab named Ruby and 1 year old Fox Red male named Bacon.
I also co-own several dogs who live the majority of their lives with customers and friends when they are not at Legend for training.