Riverside Canine Training Academy brings benefits through man’s best friend

By Willis Patenaude | Times-Register

Miranda Ledbeter grew up working alongside her father in hunting retriever clubs, observing, and even participating in hunt training. The process was intriguing, with different handlers with different styles all working toward and achieving the same goal. 

Ledbeter also experienced some of this on her own, as an 8-year old, with the family’s black lab Paddy, doing events like runs, a series of hunting tests for dogs to prove their skill level and earn titles. At her first run, Ledbeter was up against adults and pros and was a “nervous wreck,” to the point she almost backed out of the competition. 

It was Ledbeter’s dad, her biggest supporter, who kept her calm and focused. Even though she had to stand on a bucket at times to see where Paddy was, it was always “good times.”

“I had a lot of fun. So when I am teaching students and I see they are having fun, it brings me back to my childhood,” she said. 

As an 8 year old, Ledbeter learned the value of patience and practice. With it came a glint of inspiration that kept recurring until it became a full blown life calling. But as a child, it kind of floated in the back of her mind, resting right next to another passion that wanted to help people with disabilities. 

After high school, Ledbeter detoured before those two passions merged, first becoming a dog trainer. That requires patience and a “willingness to learn,” because, the way Ledbeter sees it, there are no masters when it comes to dog training. That’s because, like humans, she explained, “each dog is unique” with its own personality. There is no one-size-fits all training. You’re always just “training the dog in front of you,” she said.

“Training really depends on the dog and its ability to learn. While you want to speed the process up to get a desired behavior, sometimes it does take a long time to achieve, but in the end of training, the reward is very rewarding,” she said. 

Eventually, Ledbeter took what she’d learned and started a business, running a doggy daycare with pet sitting and boarding in Cedar Falls. In 2019, the family moved to Elkader, where she and her husband Colten, sons Sirus and Otto and “beloved canine companions” Huck and Major now live on a sprawling three-acre property. 

Ledbeter took a break after the relocation, but there was a feeling that something was missing, so she found a part-time job helping at a kennel, which brought her back to working with dogs. From there, she found her “true calling to become a dog trainer.” 

“I had a gift,” she said.

The gift led to the opening of the Riverside Canine Training Academy, where, as a self-professed “dedicated student of canine behavior” and a balanced trainer, Ledbeter utilizes a training approach that is holistic to teach and modify behavior. 

“This method is grounded in basic learning theory, which includes four key quadrants: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment and negative punishment,” she explained. 

The academy offers many services, starting with basic puppy training that “gives great foundational training experience,” specifically related to commands like “sit,” “down,” “leave it” and “off.” However, it goes deeper than that. 

According to the American Kennel Club, there are several positives to puppy training, including socialization. Research from the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph showed the importance of puppy classes, which  are an effective and essential component of socialization that can also reduce nervousness, separation anxiety and fear responses. 

Two other services stand out for their impact. One is service dog training and the other is emotional therapy dog training, which are close behind the puppy training in terms of demand. When it comes to service dogs, the benefits are immeasurable, especially pertaining to the crisis of post traumatic stress disorder, often a crippling condition for veterans. 

The organization Paws for Purple Hearts cited five benefits of service dogs for veterans, specifically noting that service dogs can “interrupt anxiety or panic attacks, provide deep pressure therapy and create physical barriers for a sense of security.” They can also provide physical assistance, increased confidence and independence, “bridge gaps and nurture stronger connections among family members” and significantly improve overall quality of life for their handlers.

This is backed up by a study published in Disability and Rehabilitation in 2019, which concluded “those who had a service dog had significantly better psychosocial health, including better emotional, social and work/school functioning.” Another study, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry in 2022, found “individuals with PTSD and a service dog had the lowest level of PTSD related symptoms among observed individuals with PTSD.”

“This is important for people who need help with events or episodes of their disability. A veteran who suffers from PTSD would benefit from deep pressure therapy, where the dog lays across the handler to help ground them or licks on the face when they are going through an activation,” Ledbeter added. 

Then there are emotional therapy dogs. Though similar in nature, they provide slightly different care, such as a therapeutic effect to the owner through companionship or comfort to individuals with mental health decline or a psychiatric illness. They help with depression and anxiety and phobias like agoraphobia and aerophobia. In fact, a study conducted by researchers at the University of Toledo and published in Human-Animal Interaction Bulletin in 2021, found “evidence that emotional support animals can provide quantifiable benefits to individuals with serious mental illness who are experiencing depression, anxiety and loneliness.”

There are health benefits in general to simply owning a dog, which Harvard Heath deemed were “undeniable,” like companionship, lower blood pressure, healthier cholesterol levels and a lower risk of heart disease. It’s not just dog training that Ledbeter is providing. She is actively changing and, in some cases, maybe even saving lives. 

When Ledbeter is not busy training over 30 dogs a year, she gives back to the community, like when she brought some of the training dogs to Kid Central. Kids got the chance to read to and interact with the dogs. It was a way of motivating kids to read as well, even if some of them were just describing pictures in books. 

“I wanted a collaboration between being able to socialize my training dogs, but also give back to the community in a different way. I enjoy watching the kids light up as I walk up with a dog as it is their turn and they start to read out loud proudly and with excitement,” she said. 

New this year, Ledbeter also launched the Dog Connection Program, described as a program “designed to ensure a smooth and successful transition for dogs into their forever homes” through a comprehensive program that is committed to “creating lasting and loving bonds between dogs and their human families.”

“I noticed some people knew what they wanted but weren’t sure exactly what they were getting into. I wanted a program where families could come to me to ask questions,” Ledbeter said. 

It was Frederick the Great of Prussia who once famously said, “The only absolute and best friend a man has…is his dog.” In light of what Ledbeter does and the innumerable benefits, it appears that, even two centuries later, Frederick the Great was right. A dog is man’s best friend.