Deborah Lee Miller-Riley has been an animal guardian for over 40 years. Her first water dog, a chocolate Standard Poodle named Chopin, was Deborah Leeās childhood sibling and devoted companion. In 1986 she met and fell in love with her first Portuguese Water Dog. Two years later, eager to share activities with her water driven dogs, Deborah Lee created a series of non-competitive PWD water tests for the Fairfield County Portuguese Water Dog Club in Connecticut. This was soon followed by the first National PWDCA Water Trial, which Deborah Lee was instrumental in creating. For the past ten years she has volunteered in all aspects of hosting a water trial, worked on local and national water committees and created training workshops and water work classes. Her dogs have earned a dozen water work titles including the Courier Excellent Title. Deborah Lee is a National PWD Water Trial Judge and has been a water work Instructor since 1993. She is the creator and director of Splash Camp, a week long all-breed water training program first held in 1999, in Monroe, Connecticut. Deborah Lee created Canine Water Sports in 2000 to bring the fun and usefullnes of water work to the world of canine sports. The sport is open to all breeds and mixed breeds. www.caninewatersports.com

Strongly influenced by the teachings of Ian Dunbar and Karen Pryor, Deborah Lee's training beliefs include:

• The purpose of training is to exalt the relationship between human and canine.
• Train for progress not perfection and you will find more reasons to praise.
• When you teach with joy and the abandonment of a child you discover the power of play and its motivational impact on canine learning.
• Structure and temperament effect behavior and the ease in which your dog learns what you desire. Know what makes your dog unique and use it to your advantage when applying the principles of operant conditioning to your teaching task.
• A good water work foundation begins by teaching these core concepts: swim, retrieve, deliver, tow, submerge, jump off, swim with a person, and find a submerged scent source. Encouraging joy, desire and ability are the path to mastership.
• Most dogs can learn to enjoy water work, despite our bias to their pedigree. Water wonder and attraction abounds in a safe and compulsion free environment where trainers employ canine awareness and maximize positive reinforcement. (Just have fun!)
• A by-product of seeking a healthy and rich relationship with our dog is the opportunity to earn titles and awards. Water work offers dog/handler teams another avenue to explore canine potential, enrich their relationship and an opportunity to earn recognition awards.

Deborah Lee is a twenty-seven year veteran with the Norwalk, Connecticut Police Department, presently serving in the Patrol Division at the rank of Sergeant. She lives in Connecticut with her husband Thomas, three Portuguese Water Dogs and two cats. She has enjoyed a variety of canine sports with her PWDs including: agility, (owner handled) breed ring, lure coursing at Wiz Kid Dog Camp, obedience, scent work and water work. Three Dogs Running Studio for Animals Only, her photography business, also keeps Deborah Lee busy in between training, teaching, and creating water fun. Her E-mail address is K9WaterFun@aol.com