Meet Nicole

Nicole Larocco-Skeehan currently owns and operates Philly Unleashed, which provides group and private dog training and behavior modification throughout the mid-Atlantic. She is also the founder of Uluru (oo-loo-roo), an interactive, digital platform which delivers on-demand dog training.

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Nicole’s professional animal training career began over twenty years ago, when she taught equestrian and horseback riding lessons after graduating from Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh. With a double major in marketing and advertising, she worked at a boarding kennel as head trainer and obedience instructor, earning her CPDT-KA (Certified Professional Dog Trainer) title.

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In 2005, Nicole decided to move into the world of Animal Sheltering. Her introduction to shelter work was with Animal Friends, a no-kill animal shelter and companion animal resource center in Pittsburgh.

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In 2008, The Pennsylvania SPCA in Philadelphia recruited Nicole for the position of Director of Animal Behavior and Training; where she built a program to enrich the lives of the animals during their stay in the shelter and to educate the public in an effort to find permanent homes for shelter animals.

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In this role, Nicole gained extensive experience working with the most vulnerable populations of animals including those aected by extreme cruelty and neglect.

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Nicole’s specialty was retraining and rehabilitating fighting pit bulls and helping them to acclimate to life as family companions. Nicole continues to work in the field of animal rescue by contracting with shelters to build behavior programming.

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Nicole also served as the Director of Behavior for New Leash on Life USA, a prison dog training program, where she worked hands-on with the inmates and their dogs.

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Nicole currently instructs the shelter behavior residency for the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

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Nicole’s efforts in animal rescue have been documented on television shows including Animal Cops: Philadelphia; Animal Planet’s: Dogfighting Exposed; National Geographic Network’s ‘What Breed Am I?” and on local television and radio programming. A thought leader in animal behavior, Nicole regularly speaks to groups around the country. You can also learn from Nicole through one of her popular dog training DVD’s published through Tawzer, or her book, The Teaching Dog, which is currently available through Dogwise Publishing.

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Nicole and her family are currently rehabbing a farmhouse in a suburb of Philadelphia. Her current menagerie includes her husband and toddler son, an Australian Cattle Dog named Uluru, a Border Collie mix named Porterhouse, four goats, three sheep, two donkeys, a flock of chickens, and a Norwegian Fjord pony with whom Nicole competes in dressage.