Gem City Dog Obedience Club

We enrolled in the puppy obedience training program with two dogs after seeing many positive reviews, but ultimately transitioned to private training after a few sessions. Our experience included initial confusion with registration and enrollment and unclear communication about which dogs were properly signed up at the start. Before the second session, there was an unfortunate interaction outside of class with another attendee regarding our dog barking. In that same situation, the instructor used very strong language to describe our dog as being intimidating to other dogs and owners, which we found discouraging in the context of training. Across all three sessions, one of our dogs was consistently separated from the group due to barking/reactivity and spent the entire class working in a separate ring. We completely understand why separation was necessary, but in our case it meant he did not receive direct instruction during class. We understand this is a standard management approach in group training settings, but it limited his ability to fully participate in the class experience. We did appreciate the small class size and found the homework helpful in giving us tools to continue working with our dogs outside of class. While we understand that group training can be effective for many dogs and owners, for our situation the structure and environment were not the right fit, and we ultimately found a private training approach to be a better option for our goals.