Pawtential Unleashed

Nuture with Positivity, Train with Purpose

Marissa Kososki

Hello! I am a professional dog trainer with a Certificate of Training and Counseling from The Academy of Dog Trainers, a proud member of The Pet Professionals Guild and a member of the Shock-Free Coalition. While I have only established Pawtential Unleashed in 2024 I have been in the pet industry since 2014. I began with dog bathing and never looked back moving on into dog daycare, dog grooming and volunteering at my local dog club.

When people think of a trained dog they might think of perfect heeling, infinite stays, and flawless compliance using only praise. When I train I have a different perspective on what the end goal looks like. I see families, couples, business women and men and their dogs coexisting smoothly. I see our community adopting realistic expectations for our dogs and using positive motivation to reach them. Most importantly though I see members of our community getting the relationship they crave with their dogs.

My core values are positive based training, science and communication. You may have noticed these are also on my home page. I find them important to repeat.

My core Values

Positive Training

I am committed to providing safe and kind training techniques for all dogs. So what does this look like?

Things I won’t do

Rough physical contact (pinching, collar dragging, hitting, kicking, forcing into position)
Use unkind gear (choke chains, shock collars, Prong collars)
Encourage adversarial relationships (alpha techniques, dominance jargon)

Things I will do

Use food, toys and attention for motivation
Use positive inspired gear (no pull harnesses, head halters, clickers)
Encourage relationships based on understanding and communication

Science

I have always held a strong belief in the importance of scientific evidence. Graduating from The Academy of Dog Trainers has only solidified this. Dog science is a hot topic as of late and is providing the pet industry with the newest information to keep your dogs happy and healthy. I strive to keep with the times and use techniques backed by science for the comfort of your dog and the efficiency of my training.

Communication

There are two components of communication I find particularly important when training; the communication between me and my client and the communication between pet parent and dogs.

I want my clients to come to me knowing I will not judge them but help them. I keep an open line of communication with my clients so they can reach out as needed. I also provide a picture or video along with a progress report if I train when a client is away.

When communicating what we need from dogs, timing and consistency are key. Consistency in our actions gets us consistent results from our dogs and helps dogs feel confident when interacting with us. Timing, especially with consequences, is critical. Late consequences can make a dog feel they are being disciplined at random.