Where It All Began
From the Beginning:
Terri Yezzi was born in September of 1987. She has had a love of animals since she can remember. By age 12 she knew all 150 AKC breeds by heart (there were only that many at the time). She dreamed of being a Veterinarian and being able to work with animals all day long.
High School Years:
Her Junior year of High School she took Boces classes for small animal care, that led her to joining the FFA and winning 3rd Place over all and 1st Place in the Grooming section In New York State.
It was around this time that her dad adopted a Golden Retriever named Mollie from the Long Island Golden Retriever Rescue. She went to many of the obedience classes her dad went to with Mollie and learned that she had a knack for training. It just came naturally to her. She applied for a job a local mom and pop pet store that also sold puppies. Here she was in charge of feeding, giving fresh water, cleaning cages, administering daily medications and socializing the puppies.
Her senior year of High School she decided to apply to go to college at SUNY Delhi and enter into the Veterinary Science Program. She volunteered at a local animal shelter and worked at the mom and pop pet store.
She was accepted into the Veterinary Science Program at SUNY Delhi, and left for her first semester in August of 2005.
College Years:
After one semester and a lot of thinking later she realized that Veterinarian was not the title she wanted after all. The idea of mostly working with animals at their most vulnerable was not what she was looking for. She wanted high speed but happy, putting dogs to sleep was not how she wanted to spend her life. Her lifes mission was to make animals (dogs specifically) happy and healthy.
Career Change # 1:
When she came home from Delhi, she got a job in the small animals department of a local big box store chain taking care of animals like hamster, reptiles, birds and fish. She became department lead and loved it but due to a toxic relationship with one of the managers she decided to quit and got a job with a mobile grooming company as well as for a short time stock for a big box clothing store. Terri was trained to groom both dogs and cats and she loved the job. After dealing with some hard times and not being able to have the opportunity to go full time she eventually quit.
Career Change # 2:
After that, a good friend of hers was leaving her training job at another big box pet store to travel the country in a canine stunt show. Terri dreamed of living that kind of life but on top of her boyfriend and family being local, she couldn’t afford that kind of lifestyle (it’s not cheap!). So she built a career as a certified trainer. She adopted a small black and tan mutt, named him ‘The Great Milenko’, Minky for short, and started trick training him. She then discovered Flyball and the obsession began.
