About Dogs and Kat

Dogs and Kat has been training in Nashville since 2003 and works from a 3,000 sq ft facility on Winford Avenue, a mile south of 100 Oaks Mall. It is one of the few local practices that is explicitly force-free and says so in method terms rather than marketing ones: "We use dog friendly training methods that do not involve fear, force, pain, or intimidation of any kind", and the site states the business abides by the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior position statement on the use of punishment.

What you can book here

Group classes are the backbone and the catalog is wide. Puppy Manners & Positive Play is $200 and includes four free attendances at supervised puppy play sessions while enrolled. Manners classes run from Basic Family Dog Manners through Better Family Dog Manners/Canine Good Citizen, plus targeted single-issue classes: Focus & Recall, No Jumping and Leash Manners. Specialty classes include Relaxed Rovers, Canine Cognition and Cooperative Canine Care. The sports track covers Beginning Agility/Confidence Building, Agility Beyond the Basics, Rally, a tricks class and Intro to Nosework. Private training is offered in your home or at the facility with discounted packages, online training is available, and Puppy Prep Day School runs 16 full days of training, socialization and confidence building across flexible four- and six-week options, with the puppy home each night.

The specialism

Kat Martin Ray specializes in behavioral cases – "especially aggression, (over)reactivity, and anxiety" – and the site states that Dogs and Kat is currently the only training facility in Nashville offering group classes for over-reactive and excitable dogs, described as the first and longest-running of its kind locally. If a reactive-dog class is what you have been looking for, that is the specific thing on offer here.

The team

Kat holds a CPDT-KA and a psychology degree with a focus on behavior modification and animal learning, with over 900 hours of education in animal behavior, and lists professional memberships with the APDT, the Pet Professional Guild and the IAABC, plus AKC CGC Evaluator status. Tripp Ethridge (CPDT-KA) has taught classes and private sessions since 2015; Josh Kaler (CPDT-KA) has trained professionally since 2021 and joined in 2024; Grace Haugh, a full-time trainer since 2021 with a Canine Trade Group certification, joined in early 2026.

Practical notes

The facility is insulated and ventilated, and the site describes using a virucidal disinfectant effective against more than 30 animal-specific viruses. The business states it has been voted Nashville's best dog trainer five years running.