Meet your trainer

Hi, I'm Andrew Kurtz, owner and lead trainer of Boop K9. I've had dogs my whole life. Always been a dog lover. But before I ever considered being a dog trainer I was a counselor. I have Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Sociology from The University of Toledo. I have a Master’s in School Counseling from The University of Dayton and was a licensed school counselor. I have a decade of experience working in the mental health/education world, focusing mostly on working with at risk youth in and out of schools. This experience played a significant role in the way I approach dog training and working with families.

My first dog after moving to Columbus was Mack, a rescued German Shepherd. He spent most of the first year of his life chained to a tree in Southwest Ohio. My wife and I were living in a one-bedroom rental in German Village at the time. I was working 50 hours a week in a juvenile residential treatment program and going to grad school. My wife was early in her public CPA career and busy with her own grind. But we decided we were the right family for Mack. He was a big smelly mess. Full of worms. About one year old and hadn’t seen a vet in his life. Not house trained. We had our hands full. Despite his rough beginning, Mack was a great dog. A true GSD. He loved to bark, loved to fetch and tug, and never met a stranger that he totally trusted. He was the dog that first got me interested in dog training. 

We added Dexter to our family after we bought our first home. We eventually decided to foster dogs as well and found great homes for several foster dogs over the years.

In July of 2015 our son was born. We brought him home to our 2 dogs and a foster dog, Gabbi. We had quite the crew. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long after this that my father was diagnosed with leukemia. He was diagnosed in November and passed away a couple days after Christmas.  At that time I was working as a counselor for an EAP firm. The job wasn’t a great fit for me and after my father passed I decided I wanted to do something to follow my own path. That something was dog training.

I graduated from the National K9 Master Trainer Program in 2016, completing a 6 week in person course with credentials in Advanced Obedience, Offleash Obedience, Tracking and Trailing, Scent Detection, Service Dog training, and Personal Protection training. The summer of 2016 I started my dog training business, Kurtz’s K9 Solutions. I loved it. I was staying busy and getting busier. I had the opportunity to work some really tough cases and even help a Police K9 and handler with some issues.

Then on January 9th 2017, my son was diagnosed with leukemia. He was 18 months old at the time. I won’t go through many of those details here, but you can read about our journey through treatment on our Facebook page here. It was hard. Harder than I ever imagined. I dropped everything when Lincoln was diagnosed, to stay home and be his primary caregiver. Our family's health insurance came through my wife's employer. I thought I’d be training dogs again eventually. Within a year maybe. That never happened. Treatment protocol for boys diagnosed with leukemia lasted 3.5 years at that time. I got close to starting training again a few times over those years, but something always came up or went wrong in treatment.

I never stopped working with dogs over the years. I helped neighbors, family, and old clients whenever the opportunity came, but I was resigned to waiting until treatment was over to officially get back to it, May 2020. As you know, 2020 wasn’t great for anybody. Covid and the pandemic came. We still had an immunocompromised child dealing with the aftereffects of long chemo treatment.

It's 2023 and here we are now. My son finished his first full year of school and can't wait to start 2nd grade in the fall. We’re in a place now where I have the time and stability to get back to doing what I love. I’m excited to work with dogs to teach them new behaviors, build confidence, and break through the barriers holding them back. I'm excited to get back into the community and help people live better lives with their dogs. Mostly, I'm excited to work with families to create a better life with their dogs.