Meet the Speakers
Dr. Kelly Ballantyne
Dr. Amy Cook
Trish McMillan
Mike Shikashio
Learn More
Dr. Kelly Ballantyne is a board-certified veterinary behaviorist and practice owner of Insight Animal Behavior Services in Chicago. Dr. Ballantyne received her Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. During her time working as a primary care veterinarian, Dr. Ballantyne developed a passion for animal behavior. She pursued specialty training with the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (ACVB) and earned her board certification through ACVB in 2015.
Dr. Ballantyne has co-authored several peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, including “Noise Aversion” in the recently published 4th ed of Behavior Problems of the Dog and Cat and “The Feline Dream Home” in ACVB’s Decoding Your Cat. She speaks nationally and internationally on companion animal behavioral issues and human-animal interactions. She serves on the Fear Free Advisory board and is the current President of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists.
Amy is the founder and creator of the Play Way. She has been training dogs for nearly 25 years, and has been specializing in the rehabilitation of shy and fearful dogs for over 15 years.
Amy is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant through the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC), a longstanding professional member of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT), and was one of the first trainers nationally to become a Certified Professional Dog Trainer through independent evaluation.
Amy returned to school in 2006 to get her Ph.D. in Psychology from UC Berkeley. Her research focused on the dog-human relationship and its effect on the problem solving strategies dogs employ.
Trish McMillan is an internationally-known speaker on the topics of animal behavior and sheltering. She holds a master of science degree in animal behavior, and is a certified professional dog trainer. Trish first walked into a shelter in the mid 90’s and has been hooked on shelter behavior since that moment. She worked for the ASPCA for nearly eight years, first as director of animal behavior at their NYC shelter, and then with the field team, helping assess and rehabilitate dogs from cruelty cases, dogfighting and hoarding situations.
Trish is the author of the defensive handling chapter in the second edition of “Animal Behavior for Shelter Veterinarians and Staff”, and owns McMillan Animal Behavior in North Carolina, where she shares her life with five species of animal friends on her farm, Pibble Hill.
Trish’s professional work includes training and behavior modification work with dogs, cats, and horses. She speaks and consults nationally and internationally on animal sheltering issues, dog, cat, and horse behavior, dog aggression, behavioral euthanasia, and defensive handling. She also runs a popular online shelter dog and cat behavior mentorships and other courses through the Shelter Behavior Hub, and is one of the founders of the behavioral euthanasia grief support group, “Losing Lulu.”
Michael Shikashio, CDBC, is the founder of AggressiveDog.com and focuses on teaching other professionals from around the world on how to successfully work aggression cases. He is a five-term president of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC) and was the Association of Professional Dog Trainers
(APDT) Member of the Year in 2020.
Michael is sought after for his expert opinion by numerous media outlets, including the New York Times, New York Post, Fox News, The List TV, Baltimore Sun, WebMD, Women’s Health Magazine, Real Simple Magazine, SiriusXM Radio, The Chronicle of the Dog, and Steve Dale’s Pet World. He also hosts the popular podcast show “The Bitey End of the Dog” where he chats with the foremost experts on dog aggression.
He has been a featured keynote speaker at conferences, universities, and seminars in more than 200 cities and 14 different countries around the world, and offers a variety of educational opportunities on the topic of canine aggression, including the Aggression in Dogs Master Course and the annual Aggression in Dogs Conference.