Meet Shaylin

AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator 
Certified Professional Dog Trainer – Knowledge Assessed 2021 ​
Fear Free Certified Professional – Trainer 2022​

Shaylin has been training dogs since 2013 but has always been a lover of animals.  Growing up, her family had rats, hamsters, a corn snake, a turtle, cats, & dogs including Dalmatians and German Shepherds.  She spent every summer as a child at Moorpark College’s Exotic Animal Training & Management program’s summer camp.  In high school, when she was too old to attend the summer camp as a camper, she became the program’s first Junior Counselor.  As an adult, her first job was working at PetSmart in Thousand Oaks as a Pet Care associate, tasked with caring for all the animals in the store while she attended CSUCI.  She had a strong interest in psychology & took many courses, including ones focused on learning theory.  This educational background was a big help when she went through PetSmart’s Dog Trainer Accreditation program & started her career as a dog trainer.  In 2020, she made the switch to working at Petco in Camarillo & in less than one year became the Training Mentor for the district, in charge of overseeing other trainers & teaching new trainers for the company.  In 2022, she decided to quit working in big box stores and was offered a position as Head Dog Trainer at the Zoom Room in Thousand Oaks.  There, she had freedom to take on more challenging behavior cases & to create her own curricula for the group classes including Obedience, Reactive Dog, Tricks, and Leash Walking.  In 2024, Shaylin started her own business, Clever Tails, offering both training and pet sitting in Thousand Oaks. ​

Shaylin strongly believes that understanding the science behind behavior is critical in effective training and takes a holistic approach, constantly assessing the dog's physical, mental, & emotional needs.  Her goal with every client is to help make training not only informative & effective, but also fun for both the dog and human with as little stress or frustration as possible for everyone involved. ​

Always striving to be aware of the most progressive science-based methods, she continues her education by attending seminars and workshops and keeping current on industry research.  Some of her continuing education includes Geek Week 2021 by Pet Professional Guild, Aggression in Dogs Conference in 2021, and the Aggression in Dogs Master Course in 2023.  Currently, Shaylin is completing the certification course to be a certified pet sitter by the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters. ​

When not helping build bonds between dogs and their humans, Shaylin spends time with her own fur and scaly babies: 2 cats, a leopard gecko, a box turtle, a puggle, and a cattle dog mix.