About Melissa Nelson
In 2012 I raised a puppy to become a service dog while attending Texas A&M, his name was Rookie Bobby. While training Rookie I fell in love with training dogs and wanted to pursue a career training service dogs. As I have grown as a trainer I have seen many instances where service dogs have amazing impact’s on their owner’s lives. Between training Rookie and those experiences I was inspired to start RB Dog Training and to help improve the lives of people and their pets.
My dog training experience started in college at Texas A&M University by raising a service dog puppy through Aggie Guide Dogs and Service Dogs. In May 2014, I graduated from Texas A&M University with a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science and a minor in business administration.
Following graduation I moved to Scottsdale, AZ to work as a service dog trainer at a ADI-accredited non-profit. I worked there for 3 years, training diabetic alert, mobility assistance, and PTSD service dogs, for both children and adults, which showed me how much a dog can transform a person’s life.
In 2017 I moved to Atlanta, GA and worked for a private dog training facility called Comprehensive Pet Therapy, where I focused on training service and therapy dogs, in addition to providing private dog training lessons. I also specialized in teaching all levels of agility classes, a therapy dog class, beginner obedience, and CGC (Canine Good Citizens) class, working for 7 years as a trainer and 2 years as the office manager. I continued to work with service dogs at CPT, along with pets and therapy dogs.
Beginning in 2022, I trained, studied, and tested to gain my dog training credentials as a CPDT-KA (Certified Professional Dog Trainer - Knowledge Assessed). I have also been a Canine Good Citizen Evaluator since 2018.
I currently compete in AKC agility competitions with both of my dogs, Savannah, a 4 year old Fox Red Labrador Retriever and Skyler, a 4 year old, Pembroke Welsh Corgi. In my free time I enjoy reading, crocheting and hiking.
