Meet the Ikonic Canine Team!
Kellie Connell
Kellie is the co-founder of Ikonic Canine with her husband Chris in San Diego, CA. She has a passion for all things competition obedience, as she thinks obedience is the most challenging of partnerships with our dogs due to the fact the dog’s desire to participate is almost entirely man made. She is also dedicated to engagement and discovering what is possible exploring deeper levels of clear communication with dogs, prioritizing their perspective and emotions.
Her first dog Joli, a German Shepherd, competed in AKC with a Novice A High in Trial. Joli was the dog that started her fascination with engagement! Although initially faced with many challenges, Kellie is very grateful for Joli’s contributions to where she is today. Her second dog Ikon, a Belgian Tervuren, is a retired IPO3 (Schutzhund) with multiple ‘v’ obedience scores and an AKC CDX with multiple High in Trials, in addition to winning the 2019 Regional Top Dog Championship (Open division).
Her current competition dog Prima, a Belgian Tervuren, is a two time IGP3 (Schutzhund), has multiple ‘v’ IGP scores, and was the Highest Scoring Female in 2 consecutive national championships! Prima will hopefully become her flagship female for her breeding program, Ikonic Belgians. Kellie also has two young Belgian Tervuren males from the Netherlands that she is looking forward to competing with soon!
Chris Connell
Chris is a retired Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer with 20 years of service, has graduate degrees in both Human Behavior and Performance Psychology, and has been training/competing in the sport of IGP (Schutzhund) since 2008. He is the training director and training helper for the San Diego Schutzhund Club since 2014 and is a classified Club level helper for USCA, having worked dogs in two Regional Championships.
He has titled two dogs in Schutzhund and currently has a wonderful 14-month puppy named Sparta, with whom he hopes to compete with at the highest levels in IGP. A professional dog trainer since 2012, he has also served as the K-9 consultant for two high profile Hollywood productions - Call of Duty Ghosts and Saving Private K-9 - where he also handled his personal dogs in both of those productions. Then in 2013 while attending a Denise Fenzi seminar, he met the love of his life Kellie, quickly signing up to be one of Kellie’s students in her engagement classes - and the rest is history!
Welcome to Ikonic Canine! Our dogs are our life, family, and passion. We believe building a cooperative working relationship is paramount. We strive to help humans better understand how to communicate clearly with their dogs...while simultaneously teaching dogs not only HOW to learn our human language, but also building the desire to WANT to learn our language. When we have an engaged and willing canine partner, our training has few limits.
We both have been training professionally for 9 years, and we love to train and compete in dog sports. Chris competes in the triathlon sport of IGP/Schutzhund, while Kellie competes in both IGP/Schutzhund and AKC competition obedience. In addition to sports, we enjoy taking our dogs to the beach, hiking, and swimming with them.
