Hi! We’re so glad you’re here. Below you’ll find out more about our dog training community, Tails of Connection (TOC for short!), and why we hope that you’ll subscribe to our newsletter. 

What is Tails of Connection? 

Tails of Connection began as an online dog training community on Instagram and since then has expanded to be a go-to resource for pet parents, including helpful topics like dog product recommendations, training guides, our take on dogs in the news, analysis of dog viral videos, animal behavior broken down into bite-sized, relevant explanations, and so much more to help you and your dog thrive. Plus, our community is filled with some of the coolest people we know.

We publish our TOC newsletter at least once a week on Friday mornings. Our aim is to balance the content between training tips, original reporting - like our interviews featuring our community members, and our take on the latest dog news and videos, so that there is truly something for everyone. 

A little bit about us…

TOC was launched in January 2020 by Jessica Yergin and Christie Catan. We kicked off with a 14-day TOC Challenge where you train your dog in your home for five minutes a day by following our on demand video e-course. Since then, thousands of people have completed the Challenge, along with our three other e-courses. 

Christie Catan is the co-founder of Tails of Connection and a certified professional dog trainer, knowledge assessed (CPDT-KA). She is also currently a Lead Trainer at Dog Trained. She is always trying to honor and respect the individual learners in front of her and make her training as conversational as possible. She strives to give learners as much control and bodily autonomy as possible and loves watching the benefits of using positive reinforcement spread to other areas of dogs’ and people’s lives. She is also a TA for Dr. Susan Friedman’s Learning and Living with Animals course, where she supports students in developing a foundation for a comprehensive and coherent understanding of behavior analysis as it relates to facilitating the lives of all learners.

Like many dog trainers, she got into the field while trying to help her own dog, Otis, through some of his challenges. He was reactive to so many things and basically afraid of anything new in his environment, and it was hard to for Christie to watch him struggle. In an attempt to do something to make his world a little better, she promised to work with him on something fun for five minutes every day (the inspiration for our challenges). In those five minutes, she watched him transform into a dog you might even label as “confident,” and their time spent training together became something she genuinely looked forward to. It offered a moment for her to slow down, be present, and connect with her dog - something she still relishes to this day. 

Christie is a big behavior nerd. Learning about the science of behavior through dog training has fundamentally shifted how she sees and moves through the world. She has witnessed how just a basic foundation can shift how people treat their dogs, themselves, and other people. For her, dog training will always be bigger than “just dog training” because of how the behaviors you learn can spread to other areas of your life and make your part of the world a little better. She will forever be a student of learning and behavior science.

Why should I subscribe to your newsletter?

While we try to cram as much information as we can into our Instagram captions, Substack will give us the space to really delve into explaining topics like animal behavior, so that you can help your dog. Also we are thrilled to move to Substack so that our community can really be a part of our newsletter. While sending out emails every week has been great, we’ve missed hearing from you directly in the comments, and Substack will bring our TOC Family front and center. Here are three ways yall can join us as a free or paid subscriber or Founding Member: 

Free Subscriber

Subscribe today for free and you will receive a newsletter from us a few times a month (maybe more!). You can also continue to follow our community on Instagram at @tailsofconnection. 

Paid Subscriber

For $8 a month (a latte!) or $80 a year (way less than that emergency trip to the vet), you will support our Tails of Connection community. Paid subscribers will receive all of our free newsletters plus special monthly dog training content and our take on viral dog and animal videos (well beyond the ones we share in the free newsletter). We are also introducing monthly “TOC Office Hours” where once a month as a paid subscriber you’ll be eligible to be selected (we’ll pick one paid community member a month) to spend up to one hour talking with Christie about a challenge you’re experiencing with your dog. These sessions aren’t meant to replace hiring a trainer, but they may offer a fun way to brainstorm, learn, and gain new perspectives. We may also use Office Hours to discuss suggested topics. In either scenario, we will pick topics from the requests and suggestions made by our paid subscribers. The office hours will be broadcase live in Substack, so you can listen in to learn (or perhaps we will open it up for broader participation) and will be able to watch the recording on demand through your subscription. Your paid subscription also enables all of the other work we do, including on Instagram. (It’s just the two of us self-funding this community and now we both have human kids and dogs at home.)

Substack has a lot of other features that we’re excited to explore, including podcasts, live chats, and comment threads. 

As you gear up for the holidays and plan your gifts, check out Substack’s Gift a Subscription option! And if for any reason you cannot afford a subscription, please send us an email at hello@tailsofconnection.com.

Founding Member 

We are so grateful for our TOC Family. So many of you have been with us from the beginning and it means the world to us. Becoming a founding member means that you believe in TOC and want to support our next chapter. For any amount of your choice over $160, you’ll get a special “founding member” icon next to your name when you comment. We hope to find unique ways to show our appreciation for your contribution as we figure out Substack and all that it has to offer.