Second Chance at Life
Every Monday, I will share a resident of the South Bay contributing to making our community a better place.
Today’s #MCM title belongs to South Bay resident and my dog’s trainer, Leroy Singh, with Mission Underdog Group who is the South Bay’s dog whisperer!
Leroy was born and raised in Jamaica, while surrounded by animals from the very beginning. His family always had Rottweilers on site, and he herded goats and cows, collected chicken eggs, chased lizards and frogs, and raised birds. Growing up, Leroy felt a desire to better the lives of animals of all kinds and at the age of 10, traveled to Los Angeles, CA.
Although he was no longer in his hometown with a backyard filled with sheep, birds, cows and dogs, he did everything within his power to continue to study animal behavior. He began collecting magazines dedicated to pigeons, flock, feline and canine, to volunteering at local animal shelters. Leroy was constantly in pursuit of attaining knowledge of animals, so following high school, he began to work at Petco.
While at Petco, he became a licensed specialist in any academia possible – including reptiles and birds. Soon after, he began working with local shelters and dog rehab facilities, where he built a philosophy that would go on to fuel his future.
Leroy worked as a dog walker and trainer for more than five years. His first training client was a referral who he met while dog-walking and one of his main clients had 15 dogs living on her sprawling mansion property.
Her assistant knew Leroy loved and worked with dogs and asked him to help a friend of hers with their out-of-control dog. From there, he received referral after referral until he had a strong enough client base to open an official boarding and training site. In July of 2011, Leroy officially began MUG training and rehabilitation in hopes of providing dogs a second chance at life by rehabilitating and training them, so they would not end up in a shelter.
Leroy worked for almost five years as a dog trainer with Brandon Fouche before branching out to open his own facility. Leroy explains that the greatest joy is working with the dogs and seeing them every day. He never leaves, never has a whole day off, and hates the thought of being off site for more than a few hours. Despite how much he loves the dogs, he explains that, “The greatest difficulty are the people.”
Despite all efforts to inform his clients, Leroy finds that many owners fail to adopt the methods he tries so hard to teach, and many dogs lapse back into poor behaviors and have to return to rehabilitation. It can be incredibly frustrating to work with a dog every day, to watch it change for the better and become an excellent, well-balanced companion, and then watch it revert back into aggression or disobedience beaches the owner failed to continue the work. Regardless, he never gives up on the dogs or his clients.
Leroy suggests that dog owners do full research on a breed before adopting. He finds that too many owners take home a dog because they find it cute and friendly as a puppy and are shocked to see it grow large, or to find it’s energetic or destructive. Before taking home a dog a family should research breed characteristics, temperament, energy levels and grooming needs to make sure the dog really is a good fit for the family. This alone would prevent thousands of good dogs for ending up in shelters for doing no more than growing into what they were bred to be.
The drive to fix dogs seems to vary by culture and area. Some areas seem to shrink from the idea of neutering dogs, preferring to breed them and make money off the puppies. Some areas all but insist that dogs be neutered and prefer rescuing mutts to buying purebreds. While volume is a huge problem and contributes to an unheard of number of shelter deaths, one of the main reason for dogs being surrendered or abandoned remains behavior issues.
When he isn’t busy training, Leroy likes to go for long drives along the coast. He loves food, of all kinds, and is always looking for new hole-in-the-wall gems with great food. He raises birds and owns a flock of almost 50 pigeons of different species, some very rare.
Leroy recently turned 30. In five years, he hopes to have at least two more branches of MUG in the area so his training and rehabilitation methods will be fully operational all the way out to Orange County and Hollywood, with a fully functional rescue as well so dogs are no longer abandoned or euthanized for aggression.
MUG deals with dogs of all types, breeds, ages, sizes, and temperaments, from Chihuahuas to Mastiffs, puppies to seniors, and the excessively fearful to the overly friendly. MUG offers everything from dog walking, boarding, basic training, intense training, and even full rehabilitation.
In addition, the team takes friendly dogs to the dog park or hiking adventures, train dogs how to walk nicely on a leash or deal politely with strange dogs, and rehabilitate dogs with severe aggression or bite histories. All kinds of dogs are welcome to join Leroy’s pack for walks, hikes, and to visit the dog park so they get a lifetime of refresher training and good socialization. MUG will also board so owners can leave town without worrying.
Rescues came to Leroy as referrals, just like all other clients. His willingness to offer discounted services and his unqualified success with last-chance cases earned him great reputation and made him the go-to guy for many local rescues with problem cases
With the Mission Underdog Group, Leroy hopes to share this knowledge, specifically surrounding dogs, with people that need help providing the best possible life for their animals. What makes Leroy so loved and admired by his clients his not only his affordable cost and love for what he does, but his willingness to bend over backwards for dogs as he often does.
To learn more about Leroy, his rescues, and MUG, please refer to his website here.
