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About Buddy's Dream
Who is Buddy?
Buddy is a dog with a very unfortunate past. As a result, he came to me fearful of all things and would bite when he got too scared - which was very often since he was afraid of everything. He is like this because the people in his past taught him that biting was his only option to protect himself, and the methods they used did not teach him to be confident and comfortable with the world. These people did not intend to teach him to bite, they just did not know how to handle a fearful dog (most people don't). They also did not understand the importance of going to a Veterinary Behaviorist and/or Reward based trainer for help. As a result, they ended up using methods that taught Buddy to be afraid and to bite without giving any warning signs when he is afraid. Much of the damage done to Buddy could have been avoided if a Board Certified Veterinary Behaviorist had been consulted for guidance initially followed by getting continued assistance from a properly qualified trainer that uses only reward based methods. Click HERE to go to Buddy's Blog to read his full story.
Purpose of Buddy's Dream LLC
Rehabilitating a dog in the condition Buddy came to me in is extremely expensive. Click HERE for more information on why.
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Buddy’s Dream LLC was created in order to raise money to pay for Buddy’s rehabilitation costs. I started by selling Pussy Willows and then added sewn items. I sell these items on this website. All money raised goes toward Buddy’s expenses and the expense of providing resources to help others with their dogs.
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I decided to create this website as a way of spreading our Mission:
To bring awareness to the issue of dog aggression; why dogs become aggressive, how to prevent it in the first place, and what to do (and what NOT to do) if you find yourself with a dog displaying aggressive behavior. It is my hope that sharing Buddy’s story will help prevent other dogs (and people) from having to endure the same experience.​
About Our Founder
Jill Shuey is the founder of Buddy's Dream, and she is Buddy's full-time rehabilitator. She combines her love for sewing with her knowledge of canine behavior to raise awareness about dogs like Buddy and to raise money to help Buddy and other dogs like him heal.
Jill began studying canine behavior 25 years ago after one of her dogs, Johnny, was attacked and bitten by a loose neighborhood dog, resulting in him developing fearful behavior toward other dogs. She worked with a professional canine behaviorist who taught her how to work with Johnny to help him trust other dogs again and this work was 100% successful! Johnny went on to live a long and happy life, but sadly as all dogs do, passed away of natural causes in 2013 at the age of 13.5 years old.
Canine behavior fascinated Jill, so for 25 years, she has continued to study canine behavior by reading books written by world renowned Veterinary Behaviorists such as Dr. Ian Dunbar and Dr. Sophia Yin, as well as many others who are leaders in the area of canine behavior. She has attended countless seminars taught by these experts, yearly canine behavior summits, actively seeks out continuing education materials to keep her knowledge sharp and up to date, and has rehabilitated many dogs.
She has studied the training and behavior modification methods used by both schools of thought (positive reinforcement/reward based AND those using aversives such as shock, prong collars, and choke chains, etc.) and she has used all of them except shock, and what she found was that the aversives, while they may temporarily stop the unwanted behavior, as soon as you remove them the behavior returns along with unwanted side effects. The aversives only serve to suppress the behavior while they are applied however, they do nothing to teach the dog how you want them to behave and they don't undo the root cause of the behavior issue. They don't simulate anything in nature, such as the mother correcting a pup, etc., even though that is what many believe. They cause the dog pain and/or discomfort, and this not only is something we don't want to do to our dogs, but it can result in damaging the relationship between the dog and handler. As a result, she found that the best and most effective way to train and modify behavior is to use positive reinforcement/reward based methods.
Jill is a member of Dr. Dunbar's "Top Dog Academy" and has learned the majority of what she knows about dog behavior and training from him. She has also had the opportunity to join Dr. Dunbar on Zoom calls where she has been very fortunate to be able to ask him directly for, and receive from him, wonderful advice on how to proceed with Buddy's rehabilitation. The advice Dr. Dunbar has given Jill has enabled her to understand what is realistic to expect when working with a dog of Buddy's severity level, and how to move forward with Buddy's rehabilitation. Dr. Dunbar continues to provide advice as needed for the many challenges Buddy and Jill face as Buddy learns to get more comfortable with the world and the people in it.
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Jill has worked directly with several Board Certified Veterinary Behaviorists on Buddy's rehabilitation. During this time Jill learned a great deal about dog behavior and rehabilitation, and received much needed step by step detailed processes for modifying Buddy's behavior and helping him to feel safe so he could learn to trust. The knowledge Jill gained coupled with her intense hands on hard work allowed her to make progress with Buddy that many in the dog care industry said was impossible.
Jill has also studied directly with Matt Beisner (host of TV's "Dog: Impossible") and Matt worked directly with Jill and Buddy on Buddy's rehabilitation. Matt has extensive experience working and living with dogs with the most severe levels of aggression, levels of aggression even worse than Buddy's, so Matt was able to provide some much needed support and advice, as well as significantly elevating Jill's dog body language reading skills!
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Jill has also attended the school of "Johnny, Ginger, and Grace", her beloved "angel dogs", who reminded her every day to pay attention to the subtle and gentle methods dogs use to communicate, which we can easily miss. Buddy, her most challenging case yet, has taught her a great deal in the 5 years she has been living with and rehabilitating him. He challenges her to learn more every single day! Working with a dog of this severity level (a severity level very few people have experience with) has dramatically elevated her knowledge and skill level in this very difficult area of rehabilitation.
Jill's rehabilitation efforts have always been successful, and since she has never charged people to help rehabilitate their dogs, she calls her rehab efforts a "hobby" (to say you do something professionally means you charge money to do it).​
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Jill has done something that few people have ever done, and that includes people in the dog training and dog care industries. There are very few people who have actually lived with and worked first hand on rehabilitating a dog with a level 4 or above bite history, but Jill has done this. In the time she has been working with Buddy and seeking help from those in the dog care profession, only 2 of the many professionals she has worked with have actually lived with and worked with a dog of Buddy's severity level. All the rest of the professionals had never personally rehabilitated a dog like Buddy, and much of the advice they gave unfortunately demonstrated that. Far too many people in the dog care industry are quick to criticize and give advice even though they have never actually rehabilitated a dog like Buddy themselves. It is one thing to give advice based on theory, but it is entirely a different thing to actually live through the rehabilitation and all the things that can happen to cause dangerous situations and/or derail your efforts. Jill unfortunately found that one of the biggest things to derail all the hard work and cause major setbacks are the mistakes made by those in the dog care industry who are quick to judge and assume they know more than they actually do. If only everyone in the dog care industry would take the time to learn about behavior from the reliable sources we provide for free in our guidance tab, we wouldn't have all the problems we have with dogs feeling the need to act aggressively and fewer dogs would be relinquished to shelters because of behavior issues.
Although Jill has extensive training and education in canine behavior, you will never hear Jill call herself an "expert" because what she has learned in life is that there is always more to learn and as soon as someone decides they are an expert, that is when they close their minds to learning and become ineffective, complacent, and even dangerous. She always encourages all dog guardians to keep on learning and provides a wealth of resources on this website toward that goal.
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Jill is pictured above in a photo taken in 2006 with two of her beloved "angel dogs", Johnny and Ginger.
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Please note: Buddy's Dream LLC has chosen the ".org" extension for our website, and we want to explain. We did this for two reasons. First, the ".com" extension was already taken. Second, one of the main goals of Buddy's Dream is to bring an awareness to, and educate about, the issue of fear aggressive dogs. The ".org" extension fits this goal. Regarding the fact that often ".org" extensions are used for non-profits, we would like to be transparent in that Buddy's Dream LLC was not set up as a non-profit, it was set up as a for profit so we did not have to limit our methods of raising money. However, having said that, Buddy's expenses far exceed the amount of money we have raised so far, and will continue to do so for a long time. If we were to sell all our current inventory, the money raised will, of course, all go to Buddy's expenses, but we still would not have raised enough money to break even with Buddy's expenses, which keep rising. So we have a very long way to go until we will be able to be "profitable", and at the rate we are going, will probably never get to that point.