Hi! I am Sam, Sam I am, and I'm the founder and owner of Sam I Am Dog Walking & Training! My husband and I are the extremely proud fur baby

parents of four wonderful fur babies: two dogs, Goliath and Marcelo, as well as two cats, Napoleon and Figaro (and hopefully more to come).

I have loved animals for as long as I can remember and always felt I had a special connection with them. From volunteering at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center in middle school, to volunteering at the Westport Animal Hospital in high school, to volunteering at The Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk Connecticut while in college and finally volunteering at Paws Rescue Center in Norwalk just a couple of years ago, it feels that no matter how old I get or where life takes me, my love for animals never changes and is always a part of what makes me happy in life. 

About 5 years ago my husband and I decided to adopt our first puppy, Goliath, who helped me realize rather quickly that there are some things about owning a dog that books, puppy classes and basic obedience classes just can't prepare you for. Goliath was born in a foster family's home, filled with a dad, a mom, kids, and several other animals, but even though Goliath had all this exposure as a puppy, we started to realize rather quickly that he wasn't very comfortable with meeting new people; barking excessively, sometimes even growling a bit and took him quite some time to get used to any new person he met. 

My husband and I were very confused by Goliath's reactions to new people, since he didn't show any signs of this behavior when we visited him at the foster family's home. He seemed like a typical playful happy puppy, and we couldn't wait to introduce him to our extremely large extended family who we see on a regular basis. We enrolled him in doggy day care along with multiple puppy and basic obedience classes, including agility classes, and I took Goliath with me on several dog walks throughout the week. Even with all this, Goliath was still extremely cautious about meeting new people and the barking only seemed to be getting worse as he was getting older. 

I started doing my own research on how I could help Goliath and with that research my fascination with dog training began. As my research gained some success, with Goliath starting to slowly become more and more comfortable meeting new people, not only was dog training becoming a fascination, but I realized how I could use my new found knowledge to help many other dog owners out there in similar situations as me. 

That's when I decided to enroll in the CATCH Canine Trainers Academy. CATCH taught me all the Ins and Outs I would need to know to be a successful dog trainer. It also taught me though that there is a lot of information that every day dog owners should be aware of that is just not found or taught in many dog training books or classes. 

It is this information that I have felt is my responsibility to share with my clients and I have ensured is a main part of my lessons. I didn't just want to teach dogs basic obedience, I wanted to help dog owners really understand who dogs are as a species and who there dog is as an individual. By incorporating this information in my lessons, I believe that I won't just help create well behaved dogs, but a stronger bond between dog and dog owner.