Grisha Stewart is a kinship tender, visionary author, international keynote speaker, dog trainer, community grief ritualist, and song leader based in Oregon, USA, devoted to nourishing belonging and care for all beings.
Grisha is of European ancestry, specifically Scotland, England, France, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, according to family lore and DNA tests. In her 20+ years as a professional dog trainer, she is best known for her Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) technique for dog socialization and reactivity/aggression rehabilitation (more on that below).
In 2001, Grisha founded Ahimsa Dog Training, which grew to be Seattle's largest and most popular dog training company. "Ahimsa" is a Buddhist doctrine of nonviolence to all living beings, which reflects Grisha's focus on more collaborative methods to promote the well-being of dogs and their humans.
Ahimsa Dog Training earned many awards, including Best of Seattle and Best of Western Washington. Ahimsa Dog Training was then bought by a beloved staff member in 2015 and it continues to thrive.
(Teaching in Portugal. Photo by Mafalda Costa - Haruto Pet Photography.)
Her seminal book, "Behavior Adjustment Training: BAT for Aggression, Reactivity, and Fear in Dogs," was published by Dogwise in late 2011. Grisha's popular second book, "The Official Ahimsa Dog Training Manual: A Practical, Force-Free Guide to Problem Solving & Manners," was published in 2012 and updated in 2014. She also has over a dozen DVDs, with 6 currently in print. Her third book, BAT 2.0 was released in early 2016 and is available to order here in digital and paperback form (and other places, but here is best)! This content replaces the first BAT book and is supplemented by the webinar Intro to BAT 3.0.
Grisha is an enthusiastic and entertaining presenter who creates her seminars to accommodate a variety of learning styles. Her interviews have been featured internationally in magazines, television shows, research articles, podcasts, blogs, and newspaper articles.
Grisha's current passion is applying her knowledge of behavior and systems to the human world. She is a community grief tender, song leader, woodworking artist, and collaborates to bring harmony to the human and non-human world via her latest project. The Kinship Tending Academy (also known as the Butterfly Farm Kinship Tending Academy) brings relational skills for collective liberation here to the Academy.
Interested in hosting Grisha for an event?
See our hosting page (on the old site) for a list of topics some quotes from seminar and event hosts.
More about Grisha
Grisha & her beloved Peanut. Photo by Carly Loyer, Ph.D.Grisha's first career as a theoretical mathematician and college instructor serves her well in dog training and behavior consultations, because she relies heavily on the problem solving, critical thinking, and teaching skills she gained in that field. Since founding Ahimsa Dog Training in 2003, she has found her canine and human students to be much more excited about learning than her college students!
Canine behavior fascinates Grisha and she is highly motivated to help improve industry standards for rehabilitating and training dogs. Her professional interest in dog reactivity, along with the need to find an efficient rehabilitation technique that would work with her own dog's fear issues, led Grisha to develop BAT.
From BAT, Grisha began caring more and more about humans and the way we cycle through harmony, disharmony, and repair.
