When Joan MacKenzie moved into Greenspring Village in Springfield, she and her dog Sandy were eager to make new friends and become involved in their new community.

MacKenzie ended up going a little further, offering a weekly training session for the residents and their four-legged friends.

“Greenspring is so much fun,” MacKenzie said of her new home and friends.

After moving to the senior living community in June, MacKenzie started thinking about offering her services as a classical conditioning and obedience trainer, a skill she obtained shortly after she adopted Sandy, a Tibetan Spaniel. Sandy is a rescue dog that came with a few emotional issues, MacKenzie said.

“I enjoyed working with Sandy so much I wanted to learn to be a trainer myself,” MacKenzie said.

She and Sandy began training with Carole Peeler, owner of C&C PALS, a training agency based in Falls Church. MacKenzie, who had worked as a lawyer before retiring, was a natural, Peeler said, eager to learn how to train her dog using skills that have been around since the 1920s or 1930s but were only applied to dogs in the past 20 or so years, Peeler said.

The kind of training Peeler and MacKenzie utilize is based more on getting the dog’s owner to understand how to best interact with their dogs, using humane, positive reinforcement techniques. Dogs are eager to please their people, Peeler said, and want to learn their tricks and how to make their owners happy.

MacKenzie “showed intellectual interest” in becoming a trainer from her first session with Peeler, and it wasn’t long before the two were discussing MacKenzie getting her national certification to become an official trainer herself.

Now MacKenzie is using those skills at Greenspring, much to the delight of the six residents and dogs with which she is working for her first session of training lessons.

Greenspring already has a dog park where owners can let their furry friends run around off their leashes, and while the dogs have to stay on leashes at all other times, MacKenzie is working with her six students on behaving better on their leashes and being good citizens in the community.

During her training sessions, dogs are learning some basic obedience skills, along with some tricks and some agility exercises, MacKenzie said. The hour-long sessions have been meeting on Thursday mornings for a month now, and everyone is progressing nicely, she said.

“These techniques build confidence for the dogs, and they’re happy if their owner is happy,” she said.

MacKenzie also sends out an e-mail after each session, so her students and their owners can practice their lessons at home.

This reinforcement is paying off, said Jan Madden, who attends the class with her 4-year-old Cavalier King Charles Tri-color Spaniel, Gilbey.

“Every morning, I have to take Gilbey’s treats out of the refrigerator first thing or he barks at me,” Madden said with a laugh. “He knows if his treats are out, we’re going to practice his tricks. He just loves practicing his tricks.”

While Gilbey might be one of the smaller dogs in the class, Madden said he’s having a great time.

“I thought it would be fun if Gilbey could walk by my side, even at other parks than the one here at Greenspring,” Madden said. “Joan’s a great teacher. We’re all having a really good time.”

MacKenzie is also hoping some of her students will progress to the level of being eligible for a Canine Good Citizenship certification, a recognition established by the American Kettle Club to reward dogs who are good citizens and well-behaved in their community and around other dogs.

The classes don’t have a set agenda, and there’s no set length of time the dogs will need to learn certain commands. Just like people, each dog learns on his or her own schedule.

MacKenzie, who has an assistant, Abbie Hubbard, helping her during the sessions at Greenspring, is hoping to start a second training session in a few weeks and has recently started working on a flyer to get the word out in her community.

Jason Connors, communications manager for Greenspring, said this is the first time a dog training program has been offered to residents, many of whom were eager to sign up as soon as MacKenzie posted her first flyer.

The community’s management didn’t have to approve the class, as residents are allowed to start their own activities.

“I’ve heard compliments from each person who is currently taking his or her dog to the training sessions,” Connors said, and the program is considered a huge success. He stopped by one session to see how the class was progressing and was pleasantly surprised.

“I saw dogs doing what was expected of them because of positive reinforcement,” Connors said. “One dog practically crawled under a stick, like the limbo, to get a treat. Every dog looked happy. They were showered with treats and praise for doing the right things. The owners are just as happy as the dogs.”