About Us
Hello! I’m Julie Sharp, the founder and owner of Sharp Dogs Seattle. I’m a certified dog trainer and behavior consultant and have helped families and their dogs for more than 15 years.
My past experiences include teaching the Seattle Animal Shelter dog-walker volunteers leash-walking strategies for difficult to walk dogs, I taught foster parent classes, helped create their foster dog manual and spent several years fostering dogs for them.
In 2008, I created and taught a reactive dog course for pet parents with challenging dogs at a local facility. I have been working with dogs who have behavioral issues since then.
Continuing education isn't just a requirement; it's my commitment to excellence!
As the industry is always evolving, I continue my education by keeping up with the latest literature, seminars, workshops, and conferences. My certifications require Continuing Education Units and I always exceed the base requirements. This continued education allows me to provide each client with the latest and greatest in dog training.
When I’m not helping clients achieve their goals, I love spending time with my awesome dogs, Petunia and Bug, and helping homeless animals find their forever homes through fostering.
My Dogs
PETUNIA
Born Fall 2019
Started fostering May 15 2020
Adopted May 25 2020
Born 2007
BUG
Started fostering Apr 2017
Born Feb 19 2017
Adopted Oct 22 2017
TROUPY
Started fostering May 2008
Adopted Aug 8 2008
RIP Jun 24 2021
LINTY
Born Fall 1999
Adopted Mar 10 2000
RIP Jul 19 2016
The Foster Dogs
My foster dogs deserve a special mention here. For almost 20 years, my pups and I have opened our doors to many shelter dogs in need of a forever home. They were individuals that came to me with their own unique personalities and temperaments.
My last 3 dogs have been “foster failures”. I adopted them knowing full well that they had behavioral challenges . They didn’t have a good chance of being adopted because of the issues they struggled with,
My first dog was a rescue who had behavior challenges and I learned as much as I could about a compassionate, supportive, non-punitive methods to help her change her feelings about what she was seeing as threats. That was the key to changing her over-the-top reactions into calmness in the face of triggers.
With my foster dogs, I gained hands on experience in dealing with the behavior issues and challenges that came with the rescues.No two dogs were alike, but each recieved a fear-free, positive relationship with me. I provided a temporary home that understood their individual challenges and treated them with compassion. I knew that their training needs would be most effective with positive, non-punitive methods so their confidence could be encouaraged and suppotted.
There have been dozens over the years and they each left a little paw print behind when they went to their new forever homes.
