Barbara Handelman, M.Ed., LCMHC, CDBC

Barbara has trained service dogs for over 25 years. Over those years, she has had seven service dog partners, all of whom she selected and trained herself. Barbara has shared a deep bond with dogs since early childhood. Her family’s standard poodle, and two German Shorthaired Pointers were her constant childhood companions. As were the baby goats with whom she developed her earliest skills in trick training. Even training one of the adult goats to be ridden. As a teenager, she began assistant-teaching in obedience classes, and helped her parents’ friends train their pet dogs. She has trained and titled dogs in diverse recreational and competitive canine sport activities including: Obedience, sheep herding, and agility. Her agility partners were also her service dogs whom she handled from a power wheelchair.

Barbara has studied and performed temperament evaluations in many contexts, including having apprenticed to Dee Ganley, whose particular specialty was evaluating shelter dogs. Barbara has successfully selected service dog candidates for herself, clients, and friends. She believes that finding the right dog is by far the most complex and difficult part of creating a service-dog-and-handler-team. The BHSDT course which Barbara created, focuses strongly on finding the right dogs for the job and creating viable matches between the dogs and prospective handlers.

Barbara is the author of the highly acclaimed book, Canine Behavior: A Photo Illustrated Handbook. This book grew out of Barbara’s close relationships with her dogs Moon, Luca, and Pan who filled her days with opportunities to observe the fascinating variety of canine behavior. With her book Barbara offers readers, devoted to dogs, a colorful tapestry of interwoven words and photos.

Barbara is also the creator of the 4 DVD set – Clicker Train Your Own Assistance Dog which has been available for almost 15 years. It remains the only resource of its depth and breadth for owner-trainers wanting to use clicker training to train their own service dogs.

Barbara was a Clinical Mental Health Counselor for almost fifty years. She retired from practice in 2017. Early in her career, her work focused on relationship therapy with non-verbal children. In that context, Barbara became a careful observer of human body language. Studying the ways dogs and horses use their bodies to communicate became a natural extension of her work with children. She has also retired from her work as a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant specializing in clicker training assistance dogs for people with disabilities. For the last thirty years, Barbara has had a secondary career as a professional photographer, using her camera to capture the moods and movements of people, horses, and, of course, dogs.

For many years, Barbara was an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maine, and the University of New Hampshire where she taught college level courses with “adult learners”. Currently, she teaches on-line courses: Understanding Canine Behavior, and the Barbara Handelman Service Dog Training Course, Tiers 1, 2 and 3. She was the originator and first moderator of the lecture series on Ethology and Canine Behavior and a lecture series about Service Dog selection and training for service dogs chosen for specific disability needs. Both the courses and the lecture series are offered under the auspices of www.e-trainingfordogs.com.

Currently, Barbara’s animal training energies are focused on Piper, her active service dog whose training is always a work in progress. His repertoire of skills increases as Barbara’s needs vary and change with advancing age and increased disability.

Barbara authored and teaches all three tiers of the: Barbara Handelman Service Dog Trainer program.

Barbara’s courses are very popular: Understanding Canine Behavior and Puppy Behavior and Socialization Course

She is also a very popular guest lecturer of the following recorded live webinars –
Keeping Dogs Safe During Dog to Dog Encounters
Enhancing the Lives of Stabled Horses
Selecting A Service Dog Candidate: A Personal Journey From a Professional Perspective
Pet Transports – The Pluses and the Perils
Intentional Thinking in Animals: Can They Do It and Is It Necessary

She hosted our Service Dog Training lecture/webinar series as well.