When we met Karen we had one dog, Oskar. Soon thereafter we got miniature Sadie. We had both dachshunds in Karen's advanced class back in April of 1989. Fortunately it was years before we had an instructor tell us that dachshunds were hard to train. Karen's attitude was encouraging."Keep practicing, if my dog can do it, yours can too!"
We practiced, worked, repeated the exercises. Karen kept us informed of all the local dog events, critiqued our performances and inspired us to persevere. She jokingly said "I never wanted you to know you had dachshunds." We earned obedience titles on our dogs and relocated to the Louisville,KY area. We had "dog fever" and joined the obedience club there. We're charter members of The Derby City Agility Club. We've stayed in touch with Karen and she's helped with some of our big "humps". How many toy dumbbells did she send us before Sadie would pick up the AKC sanctioned dumbbell?
Our lives have changed. We are now instructors and exhibitors in many types of events. Building on the solid foundation we got from Karen, we now have titles galore on two very different types of dogs. The dachshunds include Oskar (standard smooth) CD,JE; FC Sadie (mini smooth) UD, NA, OAG, ME, NH, AD, NAC-V and FC Pixel (mini longhair) CD, JE, TD.
The Belgian Shepherds are Spirit (deceased) CDX, NA ;Treasure CD, NA, NAJ and Klover NA, NAJ. For those unfamiliar with the titles they include obedience, tracking, agility, earthdog and field championships. All of our dogs are AKC Canine Good Citizens.
Karen gave a seminar for our instructors of The Greater Louisville Training Club. It was informative,fun, inspiring and we made a great profit!
We have remained good friends and share our wins and came this close stories. We are so glad she never told us to get another breed because "dachshunds are too hard to train". Thanks, Karen!

Rich and Lucinda Schultz