Melinda Benbow

Melinda Benbow is the owner and operator of Urban Uplander Pet Care in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her professional knowledge of pet care and dog training has allowed her to create and manage one of the top pet-care companies in Indianapolis for the past seven years. Melinda and her company are dedicated to providing quality pet care in the form of in-home care, boarding, basic obedience, and socialization days. Through her services, she has been able to help the pet owners of her local community achieve balanced, well-socialized, and enriched dogs while fostering the dog-and-owner bond. Melinda has also directed her scientific understanding of operant conditioning and learning theory to her relatively new passion for upland sporting.

With this new hobby came her breed of interest, the elegant English Setter. As a novice bird-dog trainer, she has spent the past few years learning from both positive reinforcement bird-dog trainers and traditional bird-dog trainers on how to truly achieve a balanced dog in the field and off. Building these relationships has helped her in her efforts to bridge the gap between different methods of training and the people who utilize these methods. Even though her journey into the field world is still relatively new, she has been able to contribute to the upland community by showing average owners of sporting breeds that there is space for them within this community, as well as room for more women and people of color.

Melinda’s Dogs:

Sir McFluff'n Stuff (Fluff), Broomhilda (Hilda), Tay-Tay, Shotgun Sugar (Suge), Jasper