About Us

Contact Us
Give us a call or email us if you would like to schedule a dog training class or an evaluation.

What class is right for my dog?

Living with Dogs
PO Box 1222
Capitola, CA 95010

(831) 476-9065
We look forward to connecting with you! We spend most of our time out working with dogs. If you reach our voice mail, please read our Class Calendar, policies, training philosophy, and class descriptions for answers to frequently asked questions. We are able to answer email quickly.

Please include the class you are interested in, your name & phone.

Living with Dogs is owned by Sandi Pensinger. Having been established in 2000 Living with Dogs provides training to hundreds of dogs every year in family manners, puppy preschool, agility, treibball, flyball, difficult dog, private lessons and workshops. Classes are provided in several locations.

Read Coastal Canine's 2011 article on LWD.

Click here to read more about our philosophy, techniques and our mission.

Sandi Pensinger
Sandi Pensinger gained early experience working in her father's veterinary cardiology practice and Veterinary Post Graduate Institute. Personally by training, trialing, showing and breeding - Retrievers, Shepherds, Terriers, Hounds and Mixed Breeds - throughout her life she has gained a deep appreciation for the diversity of canines and the human-canine relationship.

Formal Training
Sandi Pensinger continues to refine her study behavioral science, operant and classical conditioning. Graduating from the Canine Behavior Academy under Trish King at the Marin Humane Society, and from Bob Bailey's Operant Conditioning Seminars on Discrimination, Cueing & Criteria at Legacy Canine in Washington, Sandi has also studied Relationship Centered Training with Suzanne Clothier, paticipated in the annual Association for Pet Dog Trainers Conferences and Power Paws Agility Camps. She studied canine structure under Christine Zink and conformation handling under Tom Lambs. She has completed many workshops on various canine topics including competitive agility, flyball, aggression, clicker training, puppy training and TTouch. Sandi has trained under the head coach for the US Agility Team, Nancy Geyes and her husband, Jim Basic and has trained with the author of the Foundations Training for Agility DVD, Moe Strenfel. She has a Bachelor of Science with Honors as a Dean's Scholar at the School of Business at SJSU.

Keeping Dogs Happy at Home - One of Sandi’s priorities is to help decrease animal surrenders by providing dog owners with positive reinforcement tools and sport classes to prevent dog behavior problems. Sandi believes that trust, communication and relationship are the foundation of positive dog training. She adopts a holistic approach to training based in behavioral science and by using the same techniques used extensively by marine mammal trainers.

In the Community - As the president of the Coastal Dog Owners' Group (C-DOG www.capitoladogs.com) Sandi works extensivly on the Spring Dog Festival. She is a speaker for the Veterinary Science students at Soquel High School and speaks to student groups about dog safety. She also organizes Terrier Play Days on the central coast to teach novice terriers and to raise money for canine genetic research.

Nationally - Sandi is the author of The Treibball Ball Herding Handbook and teaches workshops in Treibball to trainers and dog owners. As the founder of the Jack Russell Terrier Research Foundation DNA Bank (www.jrt-research.com), Sandi coordinated the collection of over 1,200 DNA samples nationwide.

Education & Associations
Sandi graduated from San Jose State University with Distinction in 1980. She is a professional member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT) and the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC) and completed Canine Behavior Academy under nationally known trainer and author, Trish King at the Marin Humane Society.

In Competition - Sandi competes for fun with her River-Joy Jack Russell Terriers in agility, obedience, conformation, go-to-ground, lure coursing and racing.

Capi has his Elite Agility titles, won the prestigious California Cup in 2003 and has won many Agility High Point and Conformation Championships throughout the US. Tempe, has accomplished conformation, racing and go-to-ground championships and competes in agility. Up and coming Mackenzie is training and competing in agility and treibball. Piper is busy with flyball and agility.

At Home - Sandi enjoys photography, gardening, camping, fishing and spending quality time with her family.

Ed Mabie
Ed is responsible for building, maintaining and running all of our agility, lure coursing, straight-line racing, flyball and training equipment. You'll see him at lure coursing running the lure motor or weekend mornings at the agility classes. He is a mechanical whiz with patience for problem solving. Sandi and Ed were married on a 50' sailing yacht with the family Golden Retreiver at their side. Ed also loves sailing and races his boat competitively out of the Santa Cruz Harbor. Ed graudated from Santa Clara University with an Bachelor's degree and Stanford University with a Master's degree in Engineering and is employed as an engineer.

Kailey Prater

Kailey is our Trainer's Assistant and is an intern from the Soquel High School Veterinary Science program. She helps check students in and records your pup's vaccine information on the first day of class. She has worked with us since 2008. She hopes to study marine sciences when she graduates to college.