Pinelands Dog Training Center

Karen Scheiner, Obedience Instructor

Karen believes that if you work hard, you should play hard. That is, find an activity that you really, really love, and go for it.  When she first started working as an attorney, some 30 years ago, she worked long hours, leaving early, coming home late and working on weekends.  Recognizing that this was a draining lifestyle, Karen sought an activity that would be worthwhile, yet challenging and fun.

Many decades ago, as an 18-year-old college freshman, Karen attended a biology assembly demonstrating the scent ability of dogs.  The program featured a Labrador who “amazingly” was able to detect its owner’s scent on a dumbbell!  To Karen, this was fascinating.  (In fact, a dog’s sense of smell can be up to 100,000 times that of a person.)  This presentation virtually altered the course of Karen’s life.  She was determined to replicate that biology demonstration and years later, she began to train dogs for show and obedience.  Needless to say, Karen is proud that she has trained many of her own dogs to “find” her scent on the correct utility article and she has even presented training programs on the subject!

Karen has been involved in training dogs for more than 25 years.  She is an AKC conformation judge and an AKC obedience judge for non-regular classes.  (She hopes to fulfill the qualifications shortly for regular obedience classes.)  She has been a CGC evaluator for over 10 years, and is also approved as an AKC ATT (Temperament) Test judge as well as an ACT (agility) judge.   Karen serves on the board of directors for SOJAC as well as for the Dachshund Club of NJ.

In 2017, Karen closed the door on the practice of law forever, to devote herself full-time to training and showing dogs.  Her dachshunds are nationally recognized in both obedience and agility as top-ranked in their breed.  She has been invited to participate in the AKC Obedience Nationals and also had the opportunity to compete at the AKC Agility Invitationals.  Not to be outdone by the dachshunds, her toy poodle, “Pop-Tart,” also competes at the highest levels in obedience and agility.  He recently won a High In Trial award in obedience at a specialty show and is expected to earn a MACH in agility “any day now.”

Glad that she is no longer drafting legal briefs, Karen has instead written training articles for books and other publications over the years.  For the last 7 years, she has authored her own performance column known as “Weaves and Retrieves,” for the Dachshund Club of America national magazine, which she continues to write to this day.

Karen is very passionate about training dogs, and she loves what she does.  Her approach is to keep it upbeat and positive.  She uses lots of games and toys in the process. Always keep your dog wanting more! A happy dog is a great teammate.