“A dog is the only thing on Earth that loves you more than he loves himself” -Josh Billings
Welcome to Essential Canines
Essential Canines is owned and operated by Amy Di Piazza, her 4 Labradors, a menagerie of pets and her husband, Scott. Home base is located in beautiful Sarasota, Florida on a 5- and 1/2-acre ranchette in a lovely neighborhood that backs up to Myakka River State Park. There are over 30 miles of riding and walking trails in the neighborhood and Amy utilizes them for trail walks, off leash training and nose work games.
Amy has been training dogs since 2012 when she graduated from The Animal Behavior College as a Certified Dog Trainer. She has worked frequently with local rescues as a foster and has a passion for all dogs, but especially the hunting and working breeds.
Amy works with all types of shy, fearful and aggressive behaviors. She has completed The Aggression in Dogs Master course created by world renowned behavior trainer Michael Shikashio and has studied extensively to learn and utilize the most up to date, humane methods of working with problem behaviors. She continually updates her education throughout the year to be able to always offer the most current techniques available for helping you and your dog with problem issues.
Amy has completed an extensive mentorship on the East Coast of Florida learning the ins and outs of all aspects of service and therapy dog training. She is a huge advocate for coaching guardians with training their own service dogs to help build a strong team. She also provides fully trained service dogs for a variety of utilizations, including medical alert (food allergy, diabetic alert) counterbalance and stability.