About Pat
Pat Blocker, CPDT-KA, FFCP, Animal Intuitive
Pat Blocker’s passion is to help people build better dog behavior with empathy and expertise. She is the owner of Peaceful Paws Dog Training and a Certified Professional Dog Trainer with over 20 years experience. She has a passion for helping people with their dogs through education and positive reinforcement-based training.
In addition to being a Certified Professional Dog Trainer, Pat is an Animal Communicator and owner of The AnimalSpeak. Her animal communication services offer insight into the lives of people’s animals, helping to create a better relationship and understanding of them.
Pat has loved animals her entire life and has dedicated herself to giving them a voice. As an Animal Communicator, she can now give all animals a voice. She can work with the animals currently in our lives or those that have transitioned to spirit.
Pat currently lives with her two canine behavior experts, Lovely Rita and Helen Wheels. They, and all of their predecessors are her teachers and inspiration for her work.
Pat and One of Her Teachers
Pat's newest consultant on canine behavior.
Pat Blocker, Author
See Pat's page Books by Pat Blocker
It Didn’t Come from 'Fixing' Her Behavior…
It Came from Understanding it.
A story about Helen Wheels, my emotional guard dog.
By Pat Blocker, CPDT-KA, FFCP, Animal Intuitive
For some time now, I’ve been in a challenging cycle with my German Shepherd, Helen Wheels. She’s always been a vigilant dog. That’s typical of her breed. But her barking had become nearly constant. Outside, it was at every little thing. Inside, the same. And for me, someone who lives with PTSD, that barking can be more than a nuisance. It can be a trigger.
So I did what I’ve been trained to do. I tried to address the behavior. I worked with her on coming inside when she barked. I reinforced quiet behavior. I gave her structured opportunities for success.
But it wasn’t working. In fact, asking her to come inside when she was barking seemed to backfire. She wouldn’t come. And I couldn’t figure out why. I believe now that, despite my best efforts to stay calm, she was picking up on my internal frustration—and the more I tried to "fix" it, the more the tension between us escalated. It felt like we were stuck in a loop: she’d bark, I’d brace, she’d bark more. I was reacting, and she was reacting to my reaction. And we just kept spinning.
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