Scotti Harvey - Why Runamuck

Animal Training Academy: Making Ripples

After humble beginnings with Bob Bailey's chicken camps, Scotti Harvey has spent the last 15 years as a committed educator of applied animal behavior and learning science. Scotti is a graduate of the Karen Pryor Academy, a Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer, a Puppy Start Right Instructor and Fear Free Trainer, a City and Guilds Scent Detection Dog Handler, UKCSD Scent Instructor and the founder of the animal training and consulting service, Why Runamuck.

Scotti’s expertise is in the impact of early-life learning on later-life behavior. She has studied with trainers and behaviorists like Terry Ryan, Ken Ramirez, Susan Friedman, and Steve Martin, and she has attended a variety of national and international workshops and courses, like the University of Edinburgh’s Animal Welfare Course, Dr. Susan Friedman's Learning and Living With Animals, the Behavior Adjustment Training Instructor’s Course, the NEI’s Contemporary Animal Training and Management program, Ken Ramirez’s Advanced Animal Training, and Marie Fogelquist’s Polar Bear Training at Orsa Bjornpark.

In 2014, Scotti participated in a collaborative training project between KPA and Guide Dogs for the Blind that sought new and innovative ways to incorporate positive training protocols into their puppy-raising curriculum. Scotti herself is a longtime breeder of Icelandic sheepdogs, and she has studied and observed 13 litters of puppies, learning from them while exploring avenues to mitigate behavioral issues through carefully crafted and deconstructed early-life experiences.

Scotti spends most of her professional life helping canine co-habitators navigate the hiccups and tricky bits of living alongside another species, as well as collaborating with canine caregivers—breeders, fosters, shelter workers, and veterinarians—to identify ways to improve puppy rearing strategies. She is currently writing a book on those early socialization strategies and the deconstruction of puppy exposures.