Claire Cario is a Delaware native who moved to NYC in 1996. She received her M.A. in Animal Behavior & Conservation from Hunter College in 2008. Her thesis, “A Case Study: The Effectiveness and Operator Perspectives of Border Collies as a Humane Strategy for Mitigating Human/Canada Goose Conflict in Greater New York” evaluated the technique and effectiveness of using herding dogs to haze geese from an area. It also focused on the human dimensions to this management solution and investigated the attitudes and perspectives of a small subset of individuals who work with herding dogs in the field of humane goose management.

Claire comes to us after three years as the Private Trainer Manager at School For the Dogs, four years as the Behavior and Enrichment Assistant Manager at Animal Care Centers of NYC, three years as a behavior consultant on the ASPCA Anti-Cruelty Behavior Team, six years as the executive trainer and coordinator for The Good Dog Foundation, and ten years as the owner, operator, and behavior consultant of Barnyard Behavior. She has supervised, managed, and trained animal behavior staff across all sectors of the animal behavior world, developed curriculum for training programs for private training schools, municipal shelters, and therapy dog programs, given webinars on canine behavior topics, built behavior assessment systems, and developed individualized behavior training plans for dogs displaying a wide variety of behavior concerns.

Claire worked with the Mayor’s office of Animal Welfare where she contributed to the “Position Statement on Companion Animal Focus Area” and “Keeping your Animals Safe on July 4th” campaign. She has been a guest lecturer for Long Island University Brooklyn’s “Humans and Animals in Society” course, and was a speaker at Hunter College’s 39th and 40th Annual Psychology Conferences. She has volunteered in the Education Department at Prospect Park Zoo, providing information to the visiting public about animals in various exhibits.

In her free time, Claire enjoys hiking with her deaf, visually impaired dog and watching him, in spite of his special needs, enjoy his life to the fullest. She is also an avid cook and can spend hours in the kitchen preparing a meal for friends and family.