Who we are:
Walk This Way, owned and operated by Renee Payne, opened in NYC in 1999 and moved upstate in 2019. Renee graduated from the Animal Behavior Center of New York in 1999, is a member of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, has been certified by the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers since their inception in 2001, and has been a certified tester for the AKC's Canine Good Citizen Program. She's been interviewed as a behavior expert by NBC News, CBS News, Fox News, The New York Times, CNN, MNN, The New York Post, GOOD, Modern Dog Magazine (more than once), Pet360, Esquire Magazine, Health Magazine, and various other media outlets. A therapy dog class she taught was featured by The Guardian, and her puppy party was featured on NBC's Today Show.
For ten+ years, Renee worked for a northeast-based therapy dog organization evaluating, training, and certifying therapy dog teams. She also served as their Director of Training, overseeing the curriculum and trainers, developing new curriculum, and creating policy and procedure surrounding safety and best practices during therapy dog visits. During this time she also managed therapy dog teams for Pace University's Parenting, Prison & Pups program, taking her own therapy dog and several other teams to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan and to Westchester County Jail during parenting classes for female inmates. In her role as Director of Training, she also worked with the NYC Department of Education's Comfort Dog Administrator, creating curriculum and teaching classes specifically for therapy dog teams that wanted to apply for the DOE's Comfort Dog program. And she created a Crisis Response curriculum and trained appropriate therapy dog teams to respond to natural or man-made disasters or crises.
Renee spent thirteen years as a therapy dog handler as well, clocking over 400 visits with two different dogs. She visited a victim advocacy center, administration for child services, and the NYPD's Special Victims Unit with Jimmy. Fonzie accompanied her to Crisis Response visits, corporate visits, classrooms, hospitals, nursing homes, centers for autism, a library reading program, a jail, a prison, and most recently (before his retirement) a drug treatment court.
Walk This Way partnered for over twenty years with The Mayor's Alliance for NYC Animals as well as Animal Care Centers of New York City to offer discounted training to newly adopted NYC shelter dogs. Renee has evaluated the adoptability of dogs for local shelters and rescue groups, taught dog trainer programs to students from Japan for two years, has been a mentor trainer for the Animal Behavior College and for CATCH Canine Trainers Academy, and ran her own dog trainer internship program for twenty years. She also designed a written and interactive interview process for co-op buildings to evaluate potential canine residents, and was interviewed about the evaluation process by The New York Times.
Renee co-authored a children's book called Be A Dog's Best Friend about safe dog interactions, and conducted "How To Meet a Dog" seminars for young children throughout the NYC area. She also wrote several articles about dogs and kids for Nickelodeon's The Nick Jr. Channel's website, and has contributed articles to numerous other print and web-based outlets.
Renee offered service dog training for several years, specializing in scent-based training for diabetes alert, migraine alert, and food allergies.
On the fun side:
Renee has also handled Fonzie during his time as a canine actor (you can see her dressed as NYPD or FBI in several Dick Wolf productions). Fonzie's credits include Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, FBI on CBS, Tommy on CBS, and Lost Girls on Netflix. He has also done photo shoots for dog crates, clothing, and car seat covers.
Renee has been a volunteer puppy raiser, sitter, and foster for Guiding Eyes For The Blind. She shares her home with Fonzie, a released Guiding Eyes Shepherd, and a (former) puppy she raised for Guiding Eyes who also chose the pet life over guide work, a German Shepherd named Gentry.
What we believe and how we train:
We use positive-reinforcement, reward based methods first and primarily, but also understand that no two dogs are the same and there is no one "right" approach for everyone. To give each individual dog and owner what they need, we offer a balanced approach. We understand that not every dog in need of behavior modification will respond initially to the use of food rewards or other positive tools, and that sometimes there are steps to work through to get them to a place where they will, particularly if the dog has been practicing the undesirable behavior for a fair amount of time. See the LIMA Humane Hierarchy that we follow. Still have questions? Email us.
Walk This Way, owned and operated by Renee Payne, opened in NYC in 1999 and moved upstate in 2019. Renee graduated from the Animal Behavior Center of New York in 1999, is a member of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, has been certified by the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers since their inception in 2001, and has been a certified tester for the AKC's Canine Good Citizen Program. She's been interviewed as a behavior expert by NBC News, CBS News, Fox News, The New York Times, CNN, MNN, The New York Post, GOOD, Modern Dog Magazine (more than once), Pet360, Esquire Magazine, Health Magazine, and various other media outlets. A therapy dog class she taught was featured by The Guardian, and her puppy party was featured on NBC's Today Show.
For ten+ years, Renee worked for a northeast-based therapy dog organization evaluating, training, and certifying therapy dog teams. She also served as their Director of Training, overseeing the curriculum and trainers, developing new curriculum, and creating policy and procedure surrounding safety and best practices during therapy dog visits. During this time she also managed therapy dog teams for Pace University's Parenting, Prison & Pups program, taking her own therapy dog and several other teams to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan and to Westchester County Jail during parenting classes for female inmates. In her role as Director of Training, she also worked with the NYC Department of Education's Comfort Dog Administrator, creating curriculum and teaching classes specifically for therapy dog teams that wanted to apply for the DOE's Comfort Dog program. And she created a Crisis Response curriculum and trained appropriate therapy dog teams to respond to natural or man-made disasters or crises.
Renee spent thirteen years as a therapy dog handler as well, clocking over 400 visits with two different dogs. She visited a victim advocacy center, administration for child services, and the NYPD's Special Victims Unit with Jimmy. Fonzie accompanied her to Crisis Response visits, corporate visits, classrooms, hospitals, nursing homes, centers for autism, a library reading program, a jail, a prison, and most recently (before his retirement) a drug treatment court.
Walk This Way partnered for over twenty years with The Mayor's Alliance for NYC Animals as well as Animal Care Centers of New York City to offer discounted training to newly adopted NYC shelter dogs. Renee has evaluated the adoptability of dogs for local shelters and rescue groups, taught dog trainer programs to students from Japan for two years, has been a mentor trainer for the Animal Behavior College and for CATCH Canine Trainers Academy, and ran her own dog trainer internship program for twenty years. She also designed a written and interactive interview process for co-op buildings to evaluate potential canine residents, and was interviewed about the evaluation process by The New York Times.
Renee co-authored a children's book called Be A Dog's Best Friend about safe dog interactions, and conducted "How To Meet a Dog" seminars for young children throughout the NYC area. She also wrote several articles about dogs and kids for Nickelodeon's The Nick Jr. Channel's website, and has contributed articles to numerous other print and web-based outlets.
Renee offered service dog training for several years, specializing in scent-based training for diabetes alert, migraine alert, and food allergies.
On the fun side:
Renee has also handled Fonzie during his time as a canine actor (you can see her dressed as NYPD or FBI in several Dick Wolf productions). Fonzie's credits include Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, FBI on CBS, Tommy on CBS, and Lost Girls on Netflix. He has also done photo shoots for dog crates, clothing, and car seat covers.
Renee has been a volunteer puppy raiser, sitter, and foster for Guiding Eyes For The Blind. She shares her home with Fonzie, a released Guiding Eyes Shepherd, and a (former) puppy she raised for Guiding Eyes who also chose the pet life over guide work, a German Shepherd named Gentry.
What we believe and how we train:
We use positive-reinforcement, reward based methods first and primarily, but also understand that no two dogs are the same and there is no one "right" approach for everyone. To give each individual dog and owner what they need, we offer a balanced approach. We understand that not every dog in need of behavior modification will respond initially to the use of food rewards or other positive tools, and that sometimes there are steps to work through to get them to a place where they will, particularly if the dog has been practicing the undesirable behavior for a fair amount of time. See the LIMA Humane Hierarchy that we follow. Still have questions? Email us.
