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A barkin’ good time: Local dog trainer details her story
Vadnais Heights senior has no plans to slow down
BY ERIK SUCHY STAFF WRITER
Make no mistake: Mahtomedi-based dog trainer Anne Hendrickson loves training her clients’ four-legged friends and helping them love the pups for who they are. “What I love about training dogs is helping families understand them better,” said Hendrickson. “It strengthens their bonds so they get the most joy from their relationship. Dogs are also poorly understood, and training helps when they have no one to speak for them.” Throughout her career, Hendrickson has devoted her canine love to many jobs, from day care owner to personal trainer. Nowadays, Hendrickson runs Call of the K9, where she helps teach proper training techniques to dog day care staff. Hendrickson’s journey began just after she and her then-boyfriend moved to Northeast Minneapolis in the early 2000s. “We wanted to get a dog,” said Hendrickson, “even though we knew nothing about them other than we loved them.” The two adopted a German wirehaired pointer/Lab mix, Riley, who was prone to fear aggression. Through training with renowned animal behaviorist Patricia McConnell, Hendrickson considered opening a dog-specific day care center. “I worked full-time and wished I had day care for
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Bill Conway holds his Minnesota Senior Games gold medals for the 400 and 1,500 races.
placed accordingly. Two years younger and much smaller than his classmates, he didn’t go out for sports. But he grew to be 6-foot-1 after high school. “I started running in my 20s when I moved to St. Louis to work for McDonnell Douglas,” Conway said. “I didn’t know anybody there and had nothing to do, so I decided to start jogging. I’ve been jogging ever since.” When he was 40, living in southwest Minneapolis and coaching his kids’ soccer teams, he and about 20 other parent coaches, both male and female, decided to take up the sport themselves. They played Friday nights when there were no kids’ games at Lynhurst Park. “We were all terrible. None of us had played. But it was fun. We read a manual (on soccer),”
BY BRUCE STRAND SPORTS CONTRIBUTOR
When Bill Conway attended high school in Chatfield, Minnesota in the 1950s, he didn’t participate in sports because he was too small. He has made up for that as an adult. The Vadnais Heights retiree started running in his 20s, played soccer from age 40 to age 80, and earned two gold medals — in the 400 meter dash and 1,500 meter run — this past August for ages 80-84 at the Minnesota Senior Games in St. Cloud. Conway, whose career was in IT work, was born in England. When he arrived in the U.S. with his family at age 10, he was judged to be a couple of years ahead of his age group academically and was
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Conway said. From that initial experience, he and his coaching cohorts formed the Minnesota Senior Soccer League, which has grown from the original four teams to 30 teams. Conway started a website for the league. Within that group, a team called Silverbacks was formed to play in tournaments around the country. It was a co-rec team with as many as nine different nationalities represented. Conway was a Silverback until last summer, when he finally gave it up. Along the way, he and his team collected numerous medals. “We hang Bill’s track and soccer medals on the Christmas tree,” said his wife, Sandra. Conway won the 400 meter dash (age 75-79) at the
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Riley, but there wasn’t anything like that in our area,” she said. “Thankfully, one of my friends’ roommates in commercial real estate was able to find a space I could use.” In 2004, Hendrickson officially opened Downtown Dogs Daycare in Minneapolis’ North Loop. “Some people called it a mosh pit for dogs,” Hendrickson joked about the center. “We had three different rooms for different dogs to play in based on their energy levels. We accepted every breed and let them run and play throughout the day.” Hendrickson moved to Mahtomedi in 2011 and in 2014 sold the business to new owner Ralph Bernstein so she could concentrate on raising her kids, Gabe and Jonah. After selling, Hendrickson started a co-working space called Work-it out of an office
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Mahtomedi-based dog trainer Anne Hendrickson is committed to helping people bond and understand the behaviors of their four-legged friends. Here, she poses with one of her own dogs, Neville
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