Experienced Instructors
DogStar Activity Center classes are taught by instructors who share their 50+ years of experience in dog training and competition.
Julie Rembrandt Seeley, CPDT
Julie has been a professional dog trainer since 1988. She holds a professional membership in the APDT (Association of Pet Dog Trainers) and was among the group to take the first ever APDT Certification Exam for dog trainers, earning her the CPDT title.
Julie and her husband have been breeding and exhibiting Miniature and Standard Poodles under the kennel name Rembrandt since 1983, producing 45+ breed champions, including nationally ranked All-Breed and Specialty Best in Show Winners, many obedience, agility, and rally titleholders, and the first Poodle in the U.S. to achieve both MACH and ADCH agility titles.
Julie is currently competing in conformation, obedience, rally, agility, and doing Therapy Dog work. She also works with MassFed to preserve dog owners' rights. She is an AKC CGC Evaluator and has been judging AKC Rally Obedience since its inception.
Grace LaRocque
Grace has been training dogs professionally since 2000. She has trained and competed with her dogs in agility, tracking, rally and obedience. She also enjoys using clicker training to train tricks, teach new behaviors and fine tune existing behaviors.
Grace has achieved many titles including both a MACH (AKC Master Agility Champion) and ADCH (USDAA Agility Dog Championship) in agility. She has qualified for AKC & USDAA Nationals numerous times with multiple dogs. At the 2011 AKC National Agility Championship she and her Golden Retriever Zer finished 2nd in the 24" height class. Zer was ranked the highest Golden Retriever in his height class for 2010 USDAA Master Jumpers, Master Snooker and Master Standard. He was also the highest ranked Golden for all heights in USDAA Tournaments for 2010.
Grace is interested in helping each dog work to their potential and each dog and handler team work as a cohesive unit with both members having a great time.
Sharon Concannon
Sharon has been training her own dogs for over 20 years, and began training professionally in 2010. She has trained and competed in rally, obedience, tracking, and conformation. She has a BS in Animal Science, and was a veterinary technician for 15 years. She uses positive approaches to work through training and management challenges.
Sharon has earned two AKC Rally Excellent titles with her dogs, Tessa and Liam, as well as ASCA CDs with both dogs, and Tessa was ranked the top Novice A Australian Shepherd in USASA. Liam is a retired Therapy Dog, and both dogs enjoy hiking on a regular basis.
Sharon is currently working on her requirements to become an AKC Rally judge, and wants to help handlers understand the underlying principles of training and enjoying the human-dog bond to its fullest.
Karen Dicampo
Karen has trained and exhibited her own dogs in agility, obedience, musical freestyle, and conformation. She is the leader of Middlesex County Canine 4H Dog Club, a member of the World Canine Freestyle Organization and the Unleashed Dance Company.
Karen became interested in canine musical freestyle when her daughter pointed out that freestyle looked exciting. She set out to learn everything she could about the sport and began taking classes and seminars. It was not long before Karen and her Airedale Terrier Tansy began performing in demonstrations and competing. Karen and Tansy have earned their Beginner Musical Freestyle title. She enjoys using clicker training to teach and fine tune the tricks and behaviors that she uses in her freestyle routines. Karen especially enjoys combining music, costume, heelwork and tricks into fun and entertaining freestyle routines.
Karen wants to share the joy of canine musical freestyle with her students and their canine partners.