8502 SE Stark – Montavilla News

Noble Woof recently opened its first brick-and-mortar space at 8502 SE Stark Street after six years of providing in-home private dog training. Staff use positive reinforcement methods to cultivate good behavior and emotional enrichment in dogs. In addition to various instructor-led courses, their day training program helps reinforce at-home training with the added socialization dogs benefit from.

The owner of Noble Woof, Brie Blakeman, explained the importance of working with the base character of an animal in behavior training. “All dogs have several canine core needs that we can’t take out of them, and if we don’t satisfy those needs, we’re going to see maladaptive behavior,” said Blakeman. Dogs have a primal need to experience shredding, digging, chewing, chasing, sniffing, and social contact. Breed and a dog’s personality affect the mix of those characteristics. “We put a lot of focus on figuring out what each individual needs to have those core needs met, and we pair that with structured high-level training.”

Currently, Noble Woof offers day training for six hours, two days a week. The drop-off times are staggered to accommodate different schedules, with one day offering drop-off starting at 8 a.m. and the other day’s drop-off beginning at 10 a.m. Behavior training is the primary focus of the program. However, Blakeman expects certain clients will want to use the space to enrich their pet’s life rather than just building on previous training. “Some people, for example, used to be able to take their dog to daycare, and then they hit social maturity and could no longer tolerate that environment, but they still really need care for their dog.” Said Blakeman. In those cases, they will welcome the canine into the group, provided it remains a healthy environment for the dog.

Staff recommend consistency and ask clients to drop off pets on a set day, allowing them to match animals of similar character in small groups. “That allows us to facilitate slow and thoughtful introductions to the other dogs so that dogs who are a little more sensitive to their own kind aren’t feeling pressured to interact,” remarked Blakeman. Day training consists of up to four participants with group and individual activities. Dogs participating in day training must have had some instruction before attending. “The ideal client for day training is someone who has done private training with us or one of our approved training partners. There are a lot of great trainers in the city that use the same methodologies as we do, and it’s important that dog guardians are doing the training at home and understand the principles,” said Blakeman. That requirement ensures constant feedback with the consistency needed for long-term success.

Noble Woof offers an evolving roster of training opportunities for both the dogs and trainers. Blakeman explained that many clients only seek focused training and do not use the drop-off option. “There will, of course, be some guardians who just want to bring their dogs six times to work on a specific skill.” Those sessions occur every other week to build experience over a long period. “It’s a relationship, which means it’s going to take time for them to understand how to communicate with each other,” said Blakeman. Additionally, some behavior is environmental, and not all goals are achieved in an off-site session. Consequently, they will continue offering in-home instruction or observation through their staff or partners.

Noble Woof is located in the former Unicorn Jiu Jitsu shopfront, left vacant after that business relocated to 9220 SE Stark Street. Blakeman took over the storefront on April 1st and now shares the space with handmade BioThane leash maker Tricia Case. Case’s company, Trailblazing Tails, operates out of the back half of this location, and the two companies collaborate wherever possible. Blakeman is still painting the walls and working to place black agility flooring over the concrete floor in the main training room, but much of the base functions of the space are up and running. Future upgrades will include outdoor areas offering a smelling garden and patio area to practice tableside etiquette.

The four employees and five contract trainers at Noble Woof are committed to creating a trusted resource for improving canine behavior. Brie Blakeman and her employee working on the day training program have rescue backgrounds through work at the Oregon Humane Society. Blakeman emphasized the value of that experience when running Noble Woof. “When you work in rescue, you become really good at the management and prevention of problem behaviors, setting up a space as best you can to ensure the comfort of every individual. A rescue environment is quite hard, and there are a lot of stressed dogs who don’t know where their home is. I think people can bring their dogs here knowing that we have a deep knowledge of learning theory and behavior, but we also have a lot of applied experience working with dogs of all varieties.”

Jacob Loeb

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Since opening in May 2019, Unicorn Jiu Jitsu has increased membership, outgrowing its original training gym at 8502 SE Stark Street. Now they are relocating seven blocks down Stark Street to a newly updated space that will better suit their needs. Next month, the jiu-jitsu academy will move from its current location to 9220 SE Stark Street, taking advantage of the new storefront’s expanded training room and parking.

When starting the business, Unicorn Jiu Jitsu co-owner Hillary VanOrnum knew it would be a special place to train. Her position as the head coach instantly made the gym unique, and with the help of her family, they created a safe place where everyone feels comfortable in class. “There’s not any other gym in Portland, Oregon, that a woman is a head coach, and we have a pretty diverse membership. There are some classes where the majority of the class is women, and that’s pretty unusual in Brazilian jiu-jitsu,” explained Hillary VanOrnum. “A lot of gyms you walk in, and there’s one or two women on the mats, but in our gym, it’s often fifty-fifty.”

Hillary VanOrnum is Oregon’s second female black belt and places well in competitions, having won world championships. As a paralegal for a major communications company during weekdays, she schedules her classes in the evenings and Saturdays. However, eight other instructors teach at Unicorn Jiu Jitsu, including her co-owners, husband Brian, and brother Andrew Wright. Classes range from all levels of adult training to popular kids programs for ages 6 to 9 or 10 to 13. “The majority of our classes are what we would call fundamental so that they’re geared towards those just starting out their journey. It takes some people ten years to get to their black belt,” said Co-owner and Assistant Head Coach Brian VanOrnum. For the advanced members, “we have our competition class where that class is geared specifically towards those looking to compete. We don’t do a whole lot of teaching techniques in that sort of class. It’s just your opportunity to come to get some conditioning work.”

The current location served its purpose for three years, but Brian VanOrnum explained that the configuration no longer meets their needs. “We’ve experienced quite a bit of growth over the past year, and we’ve simply outgrown the space.” Additionally, “our training space is just a very small fraction of what our total square footage is, and you know honestly that that needs to be reversed. The training portion of our space should be the majority of what the space is.”

With the constraints of the existing gym and their lease coming to an end, the owners began looking for a new location earlier this year. However, they wanted to retain all their current students. “There’s always that fear of moving a considerable distance away and losing a big portion of your membership,” said Brian VanOrnum. So when a space became available next to Stark Street Pizza Company, the group jumped on it.

Over the last few months, crews have reworked the pizza shop adjacent storefront, removing its retail past. The building’s owner added new drywall to the demising wall for enhanced fire protection and reconstructed the ceiling. Soon the bare concrete floor will have a softer wood base to support the practice mats covering most of the ground. Carpet tiles will define the front lobby area, with a vinyl plank walkway leading back to the restrooms. The gym’s interior paint will retain its gray color palette from the old location. However, an accent wall painted in an “intense teal” color adds pop and definition to the open space.

Unicorn Jiu Jitsu hopes to have classes in the new location by January 2nd, with the full move completed by the end of the month. The expanded space will allow the group to continue offering all the same classes while also supporting gatherings and events. Hillary VanOrnum wanted to host activities for organizations she endorses but needed sufficient gathering space. As an organization dedicated to building and strengthening the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community for women, Girls in Gis fits perfectly with Unicorn Jiu Jitsu’s goals. Soon, the Montavilla gym will have the space to host that group’s events.

Until the move, scheduled classes will continue at the old spaces. Look for signs and buildout progress at the new location towards the end of the month, and contact the gym if you want to take classes in what they call a “safe placed for violence.”

Jacob Loeb