Erica Bukovac Dog Training
Erica Bukovac is a five star rated dog trainer in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Erica has been training dogs in Salt Lake City, Utah since 2017. Since then, Erica has helped over a thousand dogs and their owners improve their bond and relationship with each other.
Erica’s years of hands on experience with obedience, behavior modification, ecollars, and service dogs allow her to consistently produce reliable and long lasting training results with all kinds of dogs. Unlike many dog trainers who take a three day workshop or online course to become a trainer, Erica spent months in a formal in person apprenticeship with Nitro K9 in Seattle training over 60+ different dogs a week in private lessons. This extensive hands on experience allowed her to hit the ground running as a trainer, having already trained hundreds of dogs before she started her own training company. Since her apprenticeship, Erica has continued her training education into more contemporary, motivation based methods, as well as advanced sport training for AKC obedience, mondioring, and IGP (Schutzhund).
Standing out among dog trainers, Erica has a formal background in teaching people. She loves teaching people as much as she loves training dogs! She minored in Adventure Education at Prescott College, and her education background helps her be patient and motivating with her human clients. With a background in teaching rock climbing and leading backcountry wilderness trips where staying cool headed and risk management were essential, Erica is able to be patient and teach clients even with difficult or challenging dogs.
Erica is deaf, and uses a cochlear implant to hear. She lost her hearing suddenly in 2015, which started her personal journey into Hearing Alert Service Dog training and training her personal dog, Dutchie, as her service dog. Erica took hearing dog training courses from Martha Hoffman, a world championship level Schutzhund competitor who later helped run a Hearing Alert Service Dog progam for 30 years. Inspired by Martha’s endless curiosity for dog behavior and training, Erica decided to become a dog trainer after having cochlear implant surgery to regain her hearing in 2017.
Erica’s background as a disabled person with a service dog gives her a unique, hands on experience in training service dogs. Erica has extensive education and personal experience with public access for service dogs, ADA laws, air travel with service dogs, and how to handle access issues in a constructive and low stress way.
Erica is a successful AKC Obedience competitor with multiple first place finishes and High In Trial awards. She has scored as high as 199.5/200, and has even had her two dogs tie for first place in an obedience trial.
Erica is currently competing in AKC obedience at the Utility level with her German Shepherd mix, Dutchie, and is training for IGP (Schutzhund) with her Dutch Shepherd, Levi.
Erica is an avid hiker and trail runner, and regularly visits the Uintas and Wasatch Mountains with her dogs. She has extensive personal experience with training dogs for wilderness travel, training for obedience around wildlife, and dog safety for backcountry travel.
Erica grew up in New Jersey, but with frequent childhood visits to family in Arizona, she fell in love with the west and moved to Arizona in 2005. After finishing college, she moved to Utah in 2008 for its skiing offerings.
Erica’s formal college education was in visual art. She spent time at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and highly values the traditional style of art she learned there. She paints, draws, and takes photos as well. See art here: (coming soon).
Erica has taken lessons/workshops with: Michael Ellis, Francois Massart, Renate Van Allen, Debby Quigley, Mike Lorraine, Greg Doud, Fernando Dosta, Marko Koskensalo, Gary Abbott, Kathy Moore, Martha Hoffman, Patty Biggins, David Broderick, Regina Steiner, Sonja Nordstrom, and others. Additionally, she has completed Michael Ellis’ 40 hour protection theory course and a decoy training workshop for ringsport with Francois Massart.
Erica Bukovac Dog Training 