Clearwater Dog Training

Update: Just sharing our recent milestone. We won first place 3 times and earned our Rally Novice Title. Thank you for helping us set a strong foundation and steering us down the right path. I’m doing the impossible today with my reactive dog. Forever grateful to Tom and Gina. I’ve been attending group on/off for the past year usually outside which is great for distractions but sometimes cold/hot. I did a series of privates with Tom and Gina. I mainly worked with Tom which was too much fun and we’d go overtime often just chatting. I have a herding mutt rescue, Hank, who is severely dog reactive. He goes past threshold lighting fast and even would redirect on me in a panic. He just is a high management dog so I have to be very diligent with him and we use a muzzle in class. Besides class being fun I really appreciated the private tailored classes. I did training at Noble Beast (prickly pooch) before which they were friendly but was useless. Tom told me often to be more militant with my dog and to hold him to a higher standard. As he would say my dog “could get straight C’s, without even trying.” He’s right, my dog is highly intelligent and learns a new trick in 5 minutes. I’ve taught my dog several advance tricks but those tricks are rather useless when he’s being reactive. Gina actually told me that my dog was a jack of all trades but a master of none which was offensive to me BUT she was right! It was a hard pill to swallow because I think my dog’s great but all those fun tricks are useless. Ego aside, I spent months just focusing on the basics and making each command more solid. Come, heel, sit, down, let’s go, all done, and go to bed which was great last Halloween :). I really like that there is an option to come back to group classes. My dog was perfect at Noble Beast because they visually blocked the dogs during class with curtains and my dog needed more challenge. They also told me to practice more avoidance and never let my dog go above threshold. If a dog surprises us at a fence, my dog is past threshold in half a second. We need to tackle the problem head on. At Clear Water I can safely work my dog in uncomfortable settings which is being around many dogs. He would treat every group class like fight club and was ready to lunge at all dogs. There are many long time clients who come to group with wonderful dogs, who are usually very calm and well behaved. I don’t know why they keep coming other than the social time haha but it’s actually great if you have a reactive or insecure dog like mine to experience being around calm well mannered dogs. It’s also good for new clients to be around calm secure owners, who are just shooting the breeze. I’m always so focused on controlling my reactive dog it’s actually nice to hear the silly conversations going on, takes your mind off the stress of managing a difficult dog. I personally would describe Clear Water as balance training. They will use leash corrections but are very fair to the dogs. I never once felt a dog was being mistreated or over corrected. They offer clear corrections and guide the dogs and they usually always look excellent when Tom or Gina have them. Us owners need the work. They are very thoughtful of a dog’s mind/body not just commands and do a lot of natural remedies, essential oils, massages to help soothe and calm your dog. I joke hippie dog lovers will love it here! They have a great balance between the calming remedies as well as holding your dog accountable for their actions. It’s like yoga and military birthed dog training haha. I’m very grateful for Gina and Tom for putting together a great program and especially the ongoing group classes which we desperately needed.