Ursa Acree is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant, a Certified Dog Trainer - Knowledge and Skills Assessed, and a Fear Free Certified Trainer with 21 years of experience in the field. She began her career in 2001 working with clients in both group and private settings. From there, she joined the Kentucky Humane Society as their Behavior Manager, where she worked directly with shelter animals with behavior issues, and continued to serve clients who needed help and guidance with their personal pets.

In 2010, Ursa joined the Dumb Friends League, a large open admissions shelter in Denver, CO, as the Behavior Manager. There, she managed a team of eight trainers and over 100 volunteers and guided them in developing and implementing training, enrichment, and behavior modification plans for thousands of dogs and cats each year. Ursa also served as a Behavior Research Technician for Hill's Pet Nutrition in Topeka, KS, where she helped train staff and resident dogs in husbandry, cooperative care, and scent discrimination tasks as part of their nutritional research studies. Back in Denver, in 2016 she founded Canis Major Dog Training, which operated as a premier training facility in the area through 2020. Ursa is currently the Training Manager for Behavior Vets of NYC and Colorado, where in addition to seeing clients, she helps her behavior consultant teams grow and develop professionally.

Dogs are her passion, but she also loves working with horses, cats, chickens, and - the most complex animal of all - people! She is particularly passionate about helping other trainers develop the soft skills needed to connect and build trust with clients, which ultimately improves the welfare of the companion animals we work with. In her spare time, Ursa enjoys exploring the beautiful state of Colorado with her husband and son via hiking, camping, kayaking, and storm chasing; she also spends a lot of time balancing the mostly opposite needs of her 14 year old Border Collie mix and her six month old Belgian Tervuren puppy.