Reed has been supporting his wife, Jeni, in her pursuit of greatness with their dogs for 30+ years.  They have been very successful in the Whippet world for many years in the past. He became an excellent lure operator for whippen oval track racing.  They started a club and held all breed racing events locally in Milesburg.

 

More recently since changing their breed of choice to labrador retrievers and starting the 2J4PAWS business he has gotten more involved. Reed is largely responsible for keeping our dogs in shape with long off lead walks in the winter and swimming in the summer.  Once they discovered NADD dock diving in 2019, he became closely involved in this discipline and the pursuit of getting the dogs to perform at their highest level.  He trains locally at a boat launch very close to his home.  In the spring of 2024, Reed had the opportunity to jump Indi for the first time at the Westminster Dog Show at the Billie Jean Tennis Center in Queens NY.  This was quite an honor and Reed is hoping to get back there with one or more dogs.

 

His training focuses on getting our dogs to “pop”.  His dogs are strong but large.  If they jump up and out they can gain more distance because they continue to fly horizontally while going up and then down vertically.  He has been successful with this approach. Beacon (his dog)  was consistently hitting the toy at 24 and 25 feet from the end of the dock during the summer of 2023.  His daughter, Indi, is still learning at two years of age, but is already hitting 20 and 21 feet.  

 

They have recently started participating in FAST CAT with the dogs.  They have proved to be very fast for their size.  2J4PAWS purchased an entire FAST CAT equipment set up.  Using his experience running the lure for whippet racing Reed  became the lure operator for our FAST CAT adventure. 

 

Outside of the dog world Reed is an educator at heart and by training.  He was a public educator for 30 years.  The last 25 years of his tenure was spent as a secondary principal in the Jersey Shore Area School District.  He has continued his work in education at the Commonwealth University at Lock Haven as the Director of the Learning Center.