About Us
Cold Nose Companions is founded on the belief that Positive Methods yield Positive Results. You don’t need to establish “dominance” over your dog or use aversive methods to “show him who’s boss.” In fact, you develop a deeper bond and mutual trust when you reward the behavior you want. Being opportunists, dogs will repeat the behavior that gets them the good stuff. Let’s use brain over brawn. And everyone has fun! That’s the basis of our approach.
Meet the Trainers:
Christine Good
trainer and owner
Christine Good, started her career as an animal trainer in 2005 at a wildlife center. There she used clicker training to teach raccoons to patiently wait on their stations for food rather than climbing up on the keeper’s legs. She became hooked on dog training when she used the clicker working with her reactive dog Marvin who needed her to step up her game. Today, Christine shares her home with her family and her pitbull Willy who she adopted from City Dogs Cleveland and she calls “the easiest dog ever”.
Christine is a registered veterinary technician (RVT) with over 16 years of experience in the veterinary field. She became a Certified Professional Dog Trainer-Knowledge Assessed (CPDT-KA) in 2012. Through her work in veterinary hospitals she had a long-standing professional relationship with Cold Nose Companions and finally joined the team. After Cold Nose Companions’ founder Carol Peter retired in 2021, Christine assumed leadership.
Having kids herself, she enjoys working with young families to prevent miscommunication and strengthen the human-animal bond. She also enjoys the challenge of working with reactive dogs and as a veterinary technician, Christine also loves helping dogs rebuild trust for veterinary care.
Susan Browdy
trainer
Susan Browdy, has a deep love of dogs that she has nurtured first by volunteering for many years at Pawsibilities, the Humane Society of Greater Akron, located in Twinsburg and later by becoming a dog trainer after working for almost 30 years as a film editor.
Susan is a 2014 graduate of the CATCH Canine Trainers Academy and achieved Certified Professional Dog Trainer-Knowledge Assessed (CPDT-KA) certification in 2019. She is a familiar face to our Chill! clients, as she has been assisting us with those classes for the past several years and recently took over working with dogs experiencing distress when left alone.
Susan shares her home with her perky beagle Baxter. Baxter has starred in several or our Masterminds! skills videos on social media because he is absolutely brilliant.
Hanna Fabian
office fairy
Hanna Fabian, is a wonderful artist and designed (amongst other things) the large mural in our office. She is also a college student at Kent State University. Hanna got introduced into the world of dog training after working with her reactive dog, Delta, and helping her become comfortable around people and dogs again. While she is away to study during the school year she works remotely and helps out in person during breaks.
Alina Khuzhina
trainer
As a teenager in Russia, Alina fostered and found homes for strays for many years. After moving to the US in 2016 she founded her own environmentally conscious cleaning company and finally continued her mission to do good for the most vulnerable dogs when she started volunteering at the City Dogs Cleveland shelter in the beginning of 2022. Through working with the shelter, she had the opportunity to take a number of dogs through classes at Cold Nose Companions and finally made the leap into becoming a dog trainer herself.
Alina graduated from the Catch Canine Trainers Academy program in 2023 and is currently assisting with our classes to learn the ropes. Her interests lie in helping dogs overcome reactivity and teaching fun behaviors that don’t serve any other purpose than enjoying the process of learning together.
Holly Krueger
trainer
Holly Krueger used to visit children with autism and other special needs, as well as local nursing homeswith her CGC-Pet Partners therapy dogs Moses and Grace. While working on Canine Good Citizen and therapy dog certification, she began looking into other dog and handler activities and found Rally Obedience. She participated in Rally with her Brussels Griffons, Moses and Twizzler. Moses and Twizzler became the top winning Brussels Griffons in World Cynosport Rally.
However, Holly considers her greatest training accomplishment to be helping Twizzler to overcome her, at times, paralyzing fearfulness. She was able to help her find the joy in life again and live out the rest of her long life with her little tail wagging and happy gait.
Today, Holly teaches our Rally Fit for Fun course, a fun team sport for dogs and their handlers that emphasizes canine fitness. Dog and handler teams navigate a course with challenges and obstacles, requiring dog-handler teamwork and confidence. She enjoys the emphasis on positive reinforcement, communication, and interaction between handler and their dog and recently had her 10 year anniversary with Cold Nose Companions.
These days Holly shares her home with her very spunky little Brussels Griffon girl Peluche. You can find the two of them at Nose Work trials and of course doing lots of Rally.
Carol Peter
founder
Carol Peter, founder of Cold Nose Companions, LLC discovered her passion for training dogs as a shelter volunteer. There, she saw countless dogs surrendered by their humans due to behavioral issues that could have been addressed through proactive training and positive reinforcement techniques. Carol became one of the inaugural trainers in a local shelter volunteer trainer program many years ago, which helped thousands of dogs find — and stay in — loving new forever homes by modifying problem behaviors.
Her commitment to compassionate, positive training methods led her to achieve accreditation as Certified Professional Dog Trainer-Knowledge Assessed (CPDT-KA). She has honed her skills through continuing education and practical hands-on work with dogs that have complex behavioral issues such as separation anxiety, fear, reactivity, aggression and destructive behaviors.
Carol shares her life and her home with her dog Chipper and Steve, her husband of over 45 years. After retiring in 2021 Carol moved away but continues her work with shelters around her new home.
Bryana Polen
trainer
Bry Polen joined the Cold Nose Companions team in May of 2021. Her first dog adoption ignited a passion for animal welfare. Since then she has compiled a broad spectrum of experience in the shelter environment. She’s been volunteering at CITY DOGS Cleveland (Cleveland Animal Care and Control) since 2015 and created a running and hiking program for the dogs. These programs provide enrichment, training opportunities, and reduce stress for the dogs. From 2018-2022 was a staff member for Lake Humane Society. Starting in May 2022 Bry began working for The Cleveland APL. Through her experience with CITY DOGS Cleveland and and the local shelters she developed a relationship with Cold Nose Companions because she believes the key component for dogs to stay in their homes is training and socialization.
Bry, her husband Keith, and their resident enthusiastic Pittie, Summit, and animated Doberman, Ritter have opened their home to more than 80 foster dogs. In her spare time, Bry enjoys taking her dogs on pack walks to help Cleveland area dogs work on their socialization.
Bini Shanley
trainer
Bini Shanley has always shared her house with an assortment of animals of several species. Bini’s first dog, a miniature pinscher named Keebler, who joined her life when she was 9 years old was the one that really made her fall in love with dogs. She got hooked on Australian Cattle Dogs through a rescue named Gibber who launched her into the vast and wonderful world of training and dog sports. Together, they got started on the path of herding and later added another Cattle Dog, Spackle, to the family. They continued competing in herding and obedience and became quite successful.
However, strangely, it was really her horse who got her started into clicker training when she decided to teach him some tricks for fun and enrichment. When he blossomed she knew that she had found the way that she was going to train all her animals from then on. She continued clicker training not only her dogs, but also goats, sheep, and rabbits.
Bini has a love of learning about learning and behavior. She loves studying the theory behind the training and teaching and is constantly seeking out new opportunities to sponge up more knowledge. Bini still enjoys and competes in various dog sports and has earned titles with 4 of her dogs in herding, rally, obedience, and tricks.
Megan St Jean
trainer
Megan St Jean started at the young age of sixteen as a puppy raiser for Guiding Eyes for the Blind. Although Megan tried to pursue other careers she quickly realized her greatest joy and deepest meaning came from her work with dogs and training was what she was meant to do.
After rescuing her dog Shelly who struggled with anxiety and reactivity, Megan found her greatest satisfaction came from helping anxious dogs navigate this crazy world. She particularly enjoys teaching the Chill! for reactive dogs class and working with students to understand and communicate with their dogs better.
Megan continues to expand her knowledge and is currently mentoring under Pet Harmony Dog training and working towards becoming a certified behavior consultant. She shares life with numerous foster dogs, her fiancé, her two dogs, Red and Shelly, and her two cats, Willow and Bella.
John Swaney
trainer
John Swaney has come to dog training after a full career in construction engineering — a change he delights in. John started his dog training pursuits when he adopted a German shepherd, named Ginger, at which point he looked into becoming part of a search and rescue team that uses their dogs to assist area law enforcement in finding missing persons. In 2010, he became a member of a local volunteer K9 search and rescue team and realized this was where he and Ginger were meant to be. Sadly, in 2022, Ginger passed on at age 15. However, her “brother,” Hogan, who John adopted in 2014 is carrying on the work that Ginger started with his national certification beginning in 2016 and re-certification every two years. John and Hogan stand ready with their team members when called upon as needed by law enforcement agencies to bring home those that have gone missing.
John is a 2016 graduate of the CATCH Canine Trainers Academy and a Certified Professional Dog Trainer-Knowledge Assessed (CPDT-KA). John teaches a variety of classes including basic obedience on different levels and canine nose work.
Megan Wessels
trainer
Megan Wessels fostered her love for working with animals early on as a “puppy raiser” for Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester, Michigan. However, her passion for animals doesn’t just include dogs. Megan is the president of Impact Equine, a non-profit organization that specializes in equine rescue, transition, and rehabilitation. She currently shares her home, life, and bank account with her pups, Stryker and Lucy, Havoc, and Echo, along with her horse, Calvin, and numerous foster dogs.
She decided to formally start her dog training endeavors after she and her Golden Retriever, Lucy (who suffers from too much joy), began exploring the world of Nose Work! Professionally working with dogs has always been Megan’s dream, and after serving the US Army and establishing her career as a high school math teacher she is finally able to turn that dream into a reality.
Megan is a graduate of the CATCH Canine Trainers Academy, she achieved her Certified Professional Dog Trainer-Knowledge Assessed (CPDT-KA) certification in 2022. Being a veteran herself, who knows the healing power of animals, her ultimate goal is to help other veterans benefit from therapy and service dogs.