Follow The Leader K9

Poppy came to me as a rescue during 2020, tiny, sweet but also extremely reactive to dogs and humans. After one community lead training class and a few too many unpleasant interactions with off leash dogs I was at a loss as to how to make progress with her. That’s where Eric and Follow the Leader K9 come in. Poppy and I started taking 1:1 sessions with Eric early in 2021. We met once a week for about 6 weeks to work on tasks and good habits with Poppy. These sessions were great because it allowed Poppy and I to learn in tandem and in a context that was perfectly catered to our needs. I was still working from home so these sessions were perfect as I could reinforce what we learned at our session during the week. On our first session Poppy barked at Eric for approximately 45 minutes, which mortified me, but he was not deterred. Eric was the first person outside of myself that could see Poppy’s potential. The improvements she made in these few short weeks was remarkable. A little over a year later as work and life began to pick up again. I felt like Poppy and I had plateaued with her training so I reached out to Eric again to see how we could take Poppy’s training to the next level. I wanted to get her to a place where I could board her and really trust her around other people and dogs. We decided the best next step was a 2-week Day Program and this was where the magic really happened! Poppy is a completely different dog. Not only were my goals met, but Poppy has so much more confidence and has started to make a few friends of her own (so far only humans, but I know dogs will come!) Working with Eric and his team has been an extremely enriching and beneficial process for Poppy and I. Poppy loves any time she gets a chance to spend some time with the Follow the Leader K9 crew!

Eric is a huge dog lover and highly skilled trainer. I’ve seen him move mountains by taking dogs needing basic training to severe behavioral issues transforming them into calmer, better manageable and all around great dogs. There are a lot of trainers out there, but if you want one of the best, most patient, consistent with superior positive reinforcement training, this is who I recommend! Thank you Eric for all that you do and please keep up the good work!!

We can’t say thank you enough to Eric and his team at Follow the Leader K9 for all they did for our dog Hagan. Hagan is a 10 month old Great Pyrenees mix puppy who developed some severe aggression issues due to our lack of education on how to train dogs properly as owners. From the initial evaluation of Hagan, Eric took the time to listen to our concerns and offered training tools we could implement right away with Hagan before he began the formal training. Hagan did the 2 week play and train sleep away camp where he stayed Monday-Friday with Eric at his property. After Hagan’s first week when he came home we noticed a significant change in his behavior. Eric offered us numerous different training tools such as handouts, multiple training videos, and proper collars to use. As well as, daily videos during his stay with progress updates on Hagan and report cards at the end of the week. We will be recommending Eric to anyone in need of a dog trainer! Thank you Follow the Leader for creating a Hagan 2.0 for us!