Consultants

Shannon McKay

Accredited 1998 - Canine

Shannon has a long history in the domestic obedience field, having trained her first dog to intermediate level at the age of nine. In addition to running training classes she has been helping dog owners to deal with behavioural problems for the past six years. Her special area of interest is in helping domestic dog owners develop an empathy for the demands placed on working dogs in a "non-working" suburban environment.

In addition to her ABC of SA accreditation, Shannon also has a certificate in Companion Animal Behaviour from the University of Pretoria. She has been a guest speaker at numerous seminars and has had numerous dog-training articles published in the press as well as being a guest on radio talk shows and television programmes. At present she has a regular column on the Showdogs website and in the magazine, All About Dogs, and was recently invited to be a contributor to Ian & Kelly Dunbar’s website, Dog Star Daily.

She has served on the committees of the Roodepoort SPCA and the Roodepoort & Districts Kennel Club. She also serves on the Animal Behaviour Consultants of SA©™ committee – having held the position of Chairperson for the past five years.

At present Shannon operates the McKaynine Training Centre, based in Honeydew, and works with over 150 dogs every week. She also trains animals for television and print commercials and has trained the first dog in Africa to be used as a wildlife sniffer dog (this project has been featured both locally and abroad on National Geographic, BBC Channel 5 and Bush Radar).

She also breeds and shows harlequin Great Danes and has had the top harlequin kennel in South Africa since 2005. Shannon has handled many types of dogs in the breed ring and has made up 12 breed champions and has attained canine good citizen status with numerous dogs. She also competes regularly in the working disciplines, mainly agility and dog jumping, gaining qualifications in these disciplines.

Being an ardent advocate of continuing professional education, Shannon has completed courses in psychology, anatomy, physiology and biopsychology. She has also authored a research project on vagrant in-utero testosterone and the effect on behaviour and is currently working one another research project which examines the effect of early training on social behaviour. Shannon is currently undergoing a BSc Honours (Zoology) at the University of Witwatersrand.