Sihler: A life gone to the dogs

Sometimes it seems you chase your tail a while before you find what you are seeking. That’s a bit how life worked for a Wasilla dog whisperer.

Claudia Sihler knew she wanted to be a dog trainer since she was teen. By the time she was in her mid 20s, she knew she wanted to live in Alaska and with whom, but it would take a while for all of the pieces of that puzzle to fit together.

Claudia and Frank Sihler own The Better Companion, a business off Fairview Loop that offers a variety of dog training, doggie day care and other canine services.

Claudia said she’s where she wants to be, doing what she loves to do — a long way from that girl who grew up in Germany with cats and rabbits as pets.

Despite the fact her divorced mom with five kids had no time for a dog, Sihler fell in love with canines as a dog walker in Munich. While other teenage dog walkers would vie for the biggest dog or the most eye-catching canine, Sihler was happy to walk the same run-of-the-mill, unexciting cocker spaniel each day.

“I really had a good relationship with him,” Sihler recalled. So good that the owners were jealous.

But when other owners saw how obedient dogs were under Sihler’s care, she had paying clients.

When it came time to go to college, veterinary medicine seemed a natural for Sihler. She found that while she had a passion for dogs, she didn’t like surgery. But she persevered, earning her doctorate in veterinarian medicine with a thesis on profiling the personalities of dogs in shelters for more successful home placement.

In the meantime, she’d made her first trip to Alaska. It was the winter of 1995-96 and she had arranged, with her friend, Frank, a dog musher, to spend time with mushers at two Alaska kennels, and for her to work with veterinarians. When Frank couldn’t come, she decided to take the trip alone. She’d already applied for a green card to enter the United States to work, and while she didn’t have it in hand, it would get final approval as soon as she returned to Germany.

She traveled to Fairbanks and spent several weeks with the vets.

“It was my first time in Alaska,” Sihler recalled. “I had tears in my eyes when I had to leave it.”

Back in Germany, she got her green card. Frank decided to go to Finland to work with mushers there.

With plans to move to Alaska with Frank fallen through, Claudia kept her green card valid by periodically returning to the United States while she finished her doctor’s degree in Munich. Once it was done she had a decision to make: practice in Munich or move to Alaska. In 1999 at age 32, she decided to try spending a year in Alaska.

That first year she dog handled for musher Kelley Griffin, but the weather was so rainy she got on a sled only four or five times. That, she said, justified her decision to stay another year.

“I came to Alaska for mushing,” she said. “I stayed because of the people, the friendliness, the lifestyle.”

That second winter, Frank called.

“We reconnected instantly,” Claudia said. A new plan formulated.

She considered getting a U.S. vet degree, which she would need to practice here, but the cost and time involved outside of Alaska were prohibitive. She spent 2001 working as a vet in Whitehorse on a temporary permit, and rediscovered what she learned long ago.

“I really realized I hate surgery,” she said.

Instead of spending 50 to 60 hours a week doing a lot of things she didn’t like, Sihler was ready to embark on a new aspect of her interest in dogs, and society, it seemed, was ready to embrace it, too.

“At that point, dog training had changed,” Sihler said. Behaviorists were a new niche for vets.

Sihler said she’d not earlier considered dog training as a career; there were limited options and training methods were generally harsh. But times had changed.

“I had to wait along with my life until society was ready to make it my profession,” Sihler said.

She opened The Better Companion in 2002 and began offering classes.

In 2005, the Sihlers built the 2,500-square-foot Regine Dog Training Facility and began giving classes there. They built it bit by bit, out of pocket, knowing no bank would finance something as unique in Alaska.

From there it has grown each year. She has three other instructors who help give lessons. Dog owners can leave their socialized pooches at the facility for doggie day care during working hours. The facility, Sihler said, is rarely unused.

“The goal will be to train other trainers as well,” Sihler said. “My dream would be to get enough other instructors in here that the workload would be shared.”

Instructors might specialize in agility, obedience, behavior issues or puppy training.

It may have taken the Sihlers many years and miles to get where they are, but Claudia said she is content.

“I like my business,” she said. “I like having an impact.”

Nor does she feel she wasted years becoming a German veterinarian.

“I don’t feel like I threw it away,” she said. “I think I made the best of it.”

She takes on some tough dog training cases, and she’s rarely been beaten. She knows that it is often the humans that need the most training.

She stressed people should ask advice when they first start thinking about getting a dog. Picking the right dog at the right time will make training much easier, she said. People should study dogs and recognize the traits for which they’ve been bred, and not expect a dog to be trained to be something it is not.

“The education is there in the public; the help is available,” she said. “To give the right advice, right from the get-go.”

As for their own pack, Claudia and Frank, a 2003 and 2004 Iditarod finisher who has opened a paragliding business, are down to three sled dogs, as well as Jack Russell, Lucy and Sally, an Australian shepherd-husky mix.

Should she get another dog, she said she will use the same criteria she recommends to others: “My next dog will be a dog that just comes to me … as long as the dog fits my lifestyle.”