Handful Of Leashes

Heather is such a pleasure to work with. After banging my head against the wall for two years trying to train my dog on my own, I needed a trainer who would answer all my questions, give me specific details about how to communicate with my dog, and assign me straightforward homework to maintain progress. Heather checked all these boxes and more. She is warm, caring, and deeply knowledgeable. From the moment she walked through my door, my dog behaved better than I believed she could. With body language alone, Heather brought out the best in my dog. I was so impressed by the progress made with just an hour spent together. Heather is also an incredible business owner who makes you feel respected and taken care of. I am so grateful to how she extended herself to my dog and I.

I’m not usually a review leaver but I felt I had to tell everyone how worth every cent working with Heather has been. I have known Heather a while and seen all the work she’s put into learning all she can about dogs, training, and business but I had yet to use her services. Incomes Wyatt my foster fail of a puppy and suddenly I had aspirations and dreams of having a “good boy” off leash and walking well on a leash. I have had dogs for my entire life so the cocky 30 something in me thought - I can master this, I don’t know if I have the $ to spend on a trainer. I was wrong 🤣. We started with a basic obedience group class because I was trying to spend less since I’m not rocking a giant budget. It was a kind, helpful group but I got what I paid for - I ended up missing a couple classes since it wasn’t a flexible schedule and though Wyatt learned a few commands we did not learn things I could take outside of the class setting well and it only gave us a foundation to build off of. Wyatt was a small nightmare on a leash and a flight risk. He confidently stared me in my eyes as I asked him to come and chose to continue doing whatever he wanted. Once he got loose and the only way to catch him was for a kind neighbor up the street to literally open her doors to him and trap him in her home. At that point it was clear - owning dogs costs money and you get what you pay for. It was time to invest in private one on one training because it would affect Wyatt and I for the rest of our relationship and we were worth investing in. I could feel my frustration building with him despite how much I love him and I didn’t want puppyhood and being a dog mom to become something I struggled through - I wanted to enjoy every moment with my growing man. Heather managed to transform Wyatt and more importantly ME in the 5 weeks we had for our package. She was so knowledgeable and it was so helpful to be able to ask questions when she showed me things and have her help me get my form, tone, actions, and communication down. She customized each lesson around what Wyatt and I were struggling with or what I wanted to learn and she had an answer for every question I had. It showed me how much I had been miscommunicating with Wyatt and how many of the “he just doesn’t listen” or the “he just doesn’t care” moments were him not understanding what I was asking; How many of those moments were caused by my actions and lack of accountability rather than his feelings. Despite knowing what I thought was a lot about dog behavior and dog care, Heather opened my eyes to so many things I had never thought about or didn’t realize were harming instead of helping. I can’t wait to keep building this relationship with my best friend Wyatt and am so excited and proud to send Heather updates as we grow together. Wyatt is so much easier on a leash already and just had his first hike where I was able to drop his leash to explore because he respects recall now! If you want to grow that relationship between you and your pup - it’s worth the investment. Invest in Heather and she will invest in you and your dog 🩷☺️