For those who know Greg, the joke is that “Greg wasn’t raised by wolves - he was raised by dogs.”

Greg grew up as just another latch-key kid of the 90s. School was boring and he often found himself more interested in the world outside of class, whether that meant skipping school to skateboard or play guitar with his friends or spending time outside with the family dogs. In fact, these were the only things that interested Greg in his formative years - skateboarding, music, and dogs. Luckily enough for his parents, he didn’t have expensive interests.

With the exception of a few short years when Greg was back east to study at Berklee College of Music, Greg has had a dog with him almost every day of his life since he was a small child. Young, old, rescue, borrowed, or stray, Greg has reared, trained, and cared for countless dogs and to those that know him, is their resident expert of all things dog related.

Following his graduation into the 2008 recession, Greg found himself delving into the profession of amateur dog trainer, but ultimately found that it was more lucrative to build upon his education and develop his music programs, that it would have been simply too demanding to manage both a career as a music educator and a dog trainer, and that bites can be serious - and as a career guitar player, his vocational future could have been at stake.

Despite his growing success with his business, working with dogs remained his passion along with his artistic endeavors, and over the subsequent decade and a half, Greg would work with dozens of dogs, rearing them from unwanted "lost causes" to beloved household pets with the help of his helper dog, Mae.

In 2015, Greg found success with the release of his music theory textbook, The Complete Guide to Modern Songwriting, which would later go on to make Book Authority’s Top 100 Best-Selling Songwriting Books of All Time list as well as help to expand his business by serving as the core material for his courses.

At the age of 9, Mae injured herself resulting in a complete paralysis from the waist down. Greg was devastated. While seemingly everyone else, including her veterinarian, doubted that Mae would make a full recovery at the age of ten, they didn’t know Mae, and they didn’t know Greg.

Against the odds and with just a little extra care, the surprise to everyone, including her veterinarian, came when Mae was running and swimming in the ocean again by that next summer. This isn’t to say that any of it was easy. It took a lot from Greg, his wife, and of course, Mae.

Click here for a video of Mae's recovery

For the rest of her life, Mae required special care to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle in a manner which ensured her safety. This meant changes to routines, diet, care, and activities. Greg drew upon his experience with other seniors he’d cared for, specifically Max, his 14-year-old blind Akita and Hunter, his 17-year-old Golden Retriever mix.

By the spring of 2021, Mae had begun to really show her age as many dogs her size do at 14. Greg didn’t have all the answers, but he did know where to look and the experts to talk to, and Mae trusted him. At this time, there were hardly any books dedicated to senior dogs outside of the few that focused on the topics of veterinary care or “when to say goodbye” - which was disheartening, so Greg decided to write the book he wished he’d had all this time and that he was confident others (and their dogs) would benefit from reading, The Sugar Face – A Guide to Caring for A Senior Dog.

Today, Greg lives in San Pedro, California with his wife. He continues to pursue his musical endeavors and work with dogs, most notably his recently adopted and formerly “lost cause” pit bull, Lola.

To email Greg, please click here.