Auburn Leach K9 Academy

Auburn was a blessing to our family! We love our little Daisy, but we had no idea of how to train her and we were not enjoying her company due to behavior issues, specially when going on walks. Auburn not only trained her in all the areas that she needed training in (like socializing with other dogs and people, and learn how to walk on a leash) but even some very useful skills like stay and being calm. He exceeded our expectations and took such good care of Daisy. She came back clean and fluffy making the reunion even more special. I was surprised that our dog was groomed! He was also great with our family and provided detailed training to each family member so that we could maintain the skills that our little poodle learned. We used to have what we called a “wild thing” of a dog and now we got back a model citizen dog. Thank you so much for your hard work Mr. Auburn! If you’re considering his service, we highly recommend him, not only is he professional, but he has a gift to train dogs and he really loves them. Whenever he sent us pictures during the training I could tell that she was being treated kindly and well.

Decided to try Auburn as at the time I only saw great things being said. He came to our house and picked up our GSD, everything seemed great! Three hours after he left with our dog he called and said that our gsd had escaped his truck in Roanoke, so naturally we drove the hour to go help and find him. We tried calling him a few times after getting there with no answer and ended up calling the Roanoke police department to see if our dog had been spotted. Wefound him after 30 minutes of looking (he was missing for 2 hours) and decided that we would resume with the training (we wanted his recall to be on spot for these situations). Well fast forward to the next day and we get yet another call from him saying our dog ran away AGAIN, this time through a window!! He stated the 1st time and this time that nothing like this had ever happened before (after 30yrs, yeah right). We drove almost 2 hours to go look for our boy again and meet with Auburn. We asked for a full refund and our dog's belongings. All was returned and we were refunded. But how can you call yourself a professional and lose a dog twice in 24 hours! Some lovely neighbors had found our boy and kept him safe until we got him. They stated that he had been out running for 3+ hours (Auburn had said maybe an hour before we got our boy) and that he was only out for 15 minutes tops looking for him. He straight up lied to us!!!! I will never let my boy go to a board and train now ever again. This experience has ruined my trust in dog trainers. I suffer from depression and anxiety. And this whole ordeal was excruciating for me! I was blessed that the woman found him for me and we were reunited fairly quickly. Don't take your dogs to him, don't trust anything he says, he is a straight up liar!! If I could give zero stars I would.

I sent our aussiedoodle (poodle & Australian shepherd mix) and our dachshund to Auburn and can’t say enough positive things. The Aussiedoodle was our main reason for hiring auburn - she pulled constantly, barked at anyone and anything and was a nightmare to take in public. She wasn’t aggressive by any means, but it was a pain to have her bark at everything and everyone and pull constantly when we were trying to walk her. Just after we picked her up from her 3 weeks of initial training with him I saw a night and day difference! She listens, barely pulls, walks by my side consistently and has become very focused and obedient since. HOWEVER it takes work from the dog owner too - I spend 20 mins every morning training her to reinforce the behavior and commands that auburn trained her on, which is why we see continual improvement and consistency in our results. Auburn has done several follow up sessions and stays in touch between appointments. No, he doesn’t message you back 5 minutes after every time you text him, but he does respond to you and does help you. We still have work to do because it takes work, even after your initial training is done. Your dog can’t be “fixed” in a few days, it’s your personal responsibility as a dog owner to be consistent - which is why I wanted to add the following to my review..... After seeing a few 1 star reviews, its clear the problem with most of these 1 star reviews is that they’re sending their dog for a 3 week training program and have the expectation that they’re going to come back behaving like show dogs. It’s the equivalent to going to the gym for 3 weeks and expecting to have the body you would earn after 6-12 months of work. Im a gym owner and have worked with people for years on behavior change - just like training yourself, training a dog takes work and time. You can hire a personal trainer, which is 100% worth it for knowledge, guidance and accountability (just like auburn) - but you need fair expectations like I mentioned above and you can’t blame the trainer if they don’t create results overnight.