Dale Donaldson - Founder & The Gentle Coach

Dale has spent more than 35 years in the field, learning from thousands of dogs and the families who love them, and building the system that became Constructional Reinforcement Training. In 2008, he founded HappyGentle Dogs in Princeton, Texas, with one clear goal: not a training business built around one person, but a methodology any committed coach could learn and any family could trust. CRT is that methodology. Informed by the science of Applied Behavior Analysis, shaped by real dogs and real families, and taught to every coach on the HGD team. No quick fixes. No dominance theories. No pain-based tools. Just clarity, consistency, and a genuine belief in the capacity of every dog to learn, when given the right system and coaches who truly care. He is The Gentle Coach, and there is no dog or family he has ever stopped believing in. If something is not working, we do not move on. We back up, find another way, and keep going. Because there is always another way. The goal has always been twofold: help the dog, and equip the owner to keep that progress going long after they leave. Every person who comes through an HGD program walks away knowing exactly what to do, exactly why it works, and exactly how to handle whatever comes up next. Because what happens at HGD is the foundation, not the finish line. The goal is a dog that

thrives here and keeps thriving at home, with an owner who has everything they need to make that happen every single day. Send everybody home, HappyGentle.