Andrew Ramsey is a former military working dog trainer with a life-long passion for interacting with canines.   His passion for dogs led him to the Military Working Dog Training Center at Lackland Air Force Base.  He has trained military working dogs as a contractor for the Army and Air Force as well as an Air Force Civilian at the Military Working Dog Training Center. 

Andrew has made it a personal goal to bring better training techniques implemented in other areas of dog training to the pet dog nosework world.  He incorporates proper play skills to build drive and motivation, the exciting use of high value food to produce an interactive mini-event, the timing of a clicker or verbal bridge to precisely mark behavior and strategic reward delivery.  He also believes in developing an efficient search pattern from the beginning and teaching a clearly defined final response.  Andrew uses reward orientation to his benefit using a “Reward from Source” training system to create a Focused Response at Odor Source that is undeniably easy to read.  All initial training is conducted on a series of dresser drawers arranged in a linear fashion that allows him to work the dog in a way that reinforces pattern, builds duration of the dog’s willingness to hunt and also shapes a final response.  Those familiar with operant conditioning and behaviorism will recognize the similarity between the RAMSEY Training Lab and a large Skinner Box.  Andrew feels that since many of the pet dogs are sometimes lower in motivation that these training methods are that much more critical as opposed to the belief that these methods are solely for working dogs.

Early on in his journey of working with dogs, Andrew met someone whose gift with animals, clarity of explanation and patience with people literally changed his life in regards to human-animal interaction as well as human-human instruction.  He strives to replicate that same experience for the people and their dogs that he works with in Nosework, knowing that just like our furry canine counterparts not all humans learn the same way or at the same rate.  Because of this Andrew evaluates each dog and handler to discover the most efficient, effective and positive way to achieve success with them as a team.

With his love for dogs, Andrew rarely feels like his job is truly working and as a “confirmed” dog person, he will be the first to tell you that this is his way of life and he wouldn’t have it any other way.