Eastern North Carolina
Our Eastern NC branch covers all stages of service dog training throughout the Eastern NC area including the Triangle, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, and all surrounding areas. Please note that there is limited availability for trainers to travel to clients in some areas.
Jennifer Thornburg
KPA-CTP, CPDT-KA, Atlas-CT
A Bit About Jennifer
Jennifer Thornburg has 15 years in the dog industry from running a successful pet sitting and dog walking business to volunteering at her local municipal shelter, where she ran the playgroups and evaluated dogs for adoption. However, her heart has always been in training dogs and the people who love them.
Jennifer is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer through the CCPDT, a graduate of both CATCH Academy for Dog Trainers and the Karen Pryor Academy Dog Trainer Program, a rigorous certification program that requires continuing education and a pledge to train using force-free methods and techniques. She uses clicker training and positive reinforcement to solve problems and train dogs to a high level of reliability. She's a Certified Fear-Free Trainer, a licensed Family Paws Parent Education presenter and a Pet First Aid/CPR Instructor. She is working towards Level 1 TAGTeach (positive reinforcement training for humans) for the purpose of learning to work more effectively with human clients all the while finding great analogies the human students can understand and relate to.
Jennifer lives in Durham, NC with her wife, young daughter and enthusiastic Border Collie. She enjoys hiking, reading, cross stitching, playing hopscotch with her kid, beekeeping and training her own dog to pick up odd things around the house and bring them to her.
Elaine Chevalier
CPDT-KA, PESI, ABC Certified Trainer
A Bit About Elaine
Elaine Chevalier has 15 years of experience with dogs. She is a certified Service Dog Coach (SDC) graduate from Cooperative Paws Service Dog Coaching, a Certified Professional Dog Trainer graduate from the Animal Behavior College, and a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA) by the CCDT. She has also attended numerous workshops and seminars including those for psychiatric service dogs, puppy development, evaluation, and dog behavior.​
Active in several professional development groups, she serves the community as a volunteer trainer for Veterinarians to Veterans United based in Durham, North Carolina. Her passion is training the service dogs in tasks to help their handler with activities of daily living.​
She is dedicated to puppy training that leads to lifelong happiness for both owners and their dogs. She uses CCPDT training guidelines and the ethical principles of positive training for all her family and service dog training clients.
Elaine lives in Wake Forest, North Carolina with her husband Michael and her rescue dogs Beatrice and May. She enjoys reading, sewing, mediation, vegetable gardening, and couch time with her dogs.
