Jay Stull was a raised on a farm
outside St. Louis, Missouri. Like most of the local farm boys, he woke up
early, took care of farm animals and then was off to school. Once he returned
home, the usual farm chores were to be repeated, homework to be completed and
then off to the neighboring farm for an evening of fishing. That neighboring
farm was owned by Pete Litzsinger. For those of you that do not know who Pete
Litzsinger is, he was trainer that had made a name for himself training
retrievers for in the field and for hunt test. Some of these dogs went on to
national hunt test championships. Of an evening, Jay would take his fishing
pole and walk over to Pete's lake to fish and watch Pete train dogs. As Jay
grew up, Pete started letting Jay help him with the dogs and Pete would make
suggestions to Jay on how to help set up the dogs for more success. At this
point, Jay was hooked on dog training. Jay's mother said Jay would bring home
stray dogs and practice training them. Jay's parents never knew when a new dog
would be “following him home” from school.
Throughout Jay's adult life, he
continued to train dogs for all types of purposes. At one point, he owned a Pet
Store. He gained knowledge and experience in retail. Later on, he would take
dogs that were deemed dangerous and scheduled to be put to sleep due to their
aggressive nature and train them to guard businesses. Jay always helped rescue
organizations with dogs they were unsure of how to handle. One of those rescue dogs
became well known as Jay's side kick. The Belgian Malinios, Jilly, seen in newspaper
articles and seminars Jay attended is now retired and living on the Stull farm.
Jay became one of the 10 founders of
IACP (International Association of Canine Professionals). Jay believed in the
mission statement of IACP and worked very hard at trying to keep IACP on task
fulfilling the mission statement and living by the bylaws. Jay believed in high
professional standards and work ethics. Jay spent many years on the Board Of
Directors of IACP and even after resigning from the board, spent many hours a
day on the phone or writing emails to help further support IACP's mission
statement. Shortly after the formation of IACP, Jay moved home to help take
care of his aging parents and to run the Stull Farm. With the help of his wife,
Jay started a boarding, grooming and training center on the farm called The
Dawg Trainer. Jay trained many dogs to title in the sports of obedience and
field trails. Jay handled some of those dogs himself at field trails but what
he enjoyed the most was teaching the dog's owners to handle and title their own
dogs. The clients enjoyed the education presented with intelligence, patience
and laughter.
In August of 2006, Jay co-founded
CPAC (Canine Political Action Corps) to help work on legislation affecting the
business of dog trainers and dog groomers. This organization worked hard to
insure individuals working in the fields of training and grooming had someone
to protect their livelihood. Pulling from his past experience working on legislation
for businesses in the state of Florida, Jay traveled from state to state when legislation
was introduced. Jay met with legislators and helped to educate them in how to
reach the results they were looking for when writing the legislation and to
also safeguard other trainers and groomers.
Jay became a well rounded and highly
respected dog trainer. Throughout the years, people came from all over to spend
some time learning from Jay. Jay always had time for someone with an open and
willing mind to help expand their knowledge of dogs and dog training. Jay
believed in high professional standards and was willing to help anyone to reach
those standards. Every person that crossed the threshold of The Dawg Trainer was
met with a smile and the feeling of there was plenty of time to be spent
working through any problems they felt they had.
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