Let's take a walk

Fitness instructor and trainer Amanda Mondloch helps her students build strength, endurance and self-confidence with a demanding yet enjoyable regimen of long-distance walking, running, jumping and climbing. 

Her students are dogs.

Mondloch is the tall, slender, blond woman passersby see almost daily walking along the streets and on walkways of Port Washington in the company of five or more leashed dogs.

On her walks, Mondloch takes dogs of any size, breed, age or ability, and often takes the group into crowded areas like downtown Port for mental stimulation where she can train them to ignore distractions.

Mondloch, who lives in Oostburg, operates Busy Doodle Mobile Fitness and Training, a business that besides those walkabouts in Port takes her to clients’ homes for dog obedience training and to Rage Fitness in Sheboygan, where she runs Move @ Rage for dog training and exercise.

“It’s kind of Curves meets CrossFit meets parkour (a popular workout discipline for humans) for dogs,” Mondloch said.

Activities include jumping on boxes, in and out of tires or standing on a BOSU ball.

Mondloch was inspired to run her canine fitness routines by her own workouts at the gym.

“Well, we could do this for dogs,” she thought. “Especially during the winter since it’s so difficult to have an outlet to adequately exercise dogs.”

The dogs share their space with humans doing kickboxing or jui-jitsu while music is playing.

“It’s focused on working to trust their humans. It’s really a relationship-building thing,” Mondloch said. “All of that is great confidence building for the dogs.”

Mondloch built her own confidence through a series of adventures after graduating from high school in 2005.

The Hingham native who was home-schooled had hoped to be a Christian music star. That path didn’t work out, but she found an ad on the side of her Facebook page for a camping ministry in Australia and clicked on it.

After five months in Australia, she returned to the U.S. and got a job at a Colorado ranch, where she worked for three summers, often staying into fall to help close for the season and was part of a horse drive to move the ranch’s 120 horses 16 miles to their winter pasture.

It was a life-changing experience in more ways than one. It was there she raised a litter of leopard cur hound puppies and was told she was a natural.

That was Mondloch’s lightbulb moment. She decided to start a dog-training business.

She had grown up with lab mixes and took her first dog, Daisy, to obedience classes and instantly developed a passion for it. “I was one of those geeky kids who rented dog-training videos from the library,” Mondloch said.

Wisconsin doesn’t require a license for dog trainers, but Mondloch took an online course through an animal behavior college to learn more and for credibility.

She started with dog walking, specializing in helping dogs with anxiety.

“Dogs are really great at being mirrors. A lot of anxiety extends from the human,” she said.

“I think not only do I like working with the dogs, I like working with the humans through their dogs.”

Sometimes, dogs do the training themselves.

“They can teach you to live in the present. Dogs are really good at here and now,” Mondloch said.

“Dogs almost always notice your phone and will check out with you — they’ll pull you — you are not leading. You’re clearly distracted. I’ve got to take over now.”

Miscommunication is one hurdle. The way people interact with their dogs is often interpreted differently than they think.

“What I thought I was saying, the dog isn’t getting it,” Mondloch said.

The most gratifying part of her job is to see people, primarily women, conquer their fears about dealing with dogs.

“Breath, believe and be brave,” Mondloch said of her motto.

“Watching them do it — that’s the aha moment that just lights me up, to watch them excel and move forward and to feel more empowered to do something they didn’t think they were able to do.

“Leadership makes (dogs) feel safe. It makes them feel like they don’t have to be afraid of the world.”

Mondloch has about 100 clients — her pack, she calls them. 

Her training is focused more on confidence than obedience, such as proper socialization, being around other dogs while being focused on their humans.

Mondloch has her own dog, Oakley, a 10-year-old chocolate doodle who often comes along for training or on walks.

“He is practically perfect,” she said.

 “I have the best job in the world,” she said, adding that her “faith in Christ is a huge part of my business. It’s amazing how God has moved this and I’m just along for the ride.” 

For more information, visit https://busydoodle.weebly.com/about-amanda.html.