Helping Pets Behave

We first met Mary in January 2020 after months of frustration with our 1.5 year old English Cream Retriever. We had worked with a couple highly recommended trainers along with our Veterinarian for over a year to overcome King’s guarding behaviors and monthly outbursts resulted in him lunging at me and biting on a few occasions. Because of the danger he posed, we were at the point where we were actively looking to find a new home for him despite the thought of separating him from our family was devastating. Every evening we looked online for help with our situation whether that was organizations who might help re-home him or professionals that might be able to help us change his behavior. I happened to find Mary’s website from a web-search and read a review from someone who described having a very similar situation that she had been able to resolve. Our family agreed that we’d schedule a virtual session with Mary as a last ditch effort to save King. Mary was amazing during our session. She asked thorough questions, listened without judging us and made recommendations without making us feel like we had to do anything. She helped us understand how some of the training techniques we had been taught to use with him from our professional trainer were actually causing King to mistrust us as much as we couldn’t trust him. She helped us build a plan to undue 99% of what our professional trainer had taught us to do (new walking technique, different feeding routines and different toys). Neither my wife or I had confidence this different approach would save him, but shockingly we starting to see King’s behavior change within days. Seven months later, King is a huge part of our family and hasn’t had any guarding, aggressive behavior or biting since our session with Mary. She checks in with us through email every few months and has made herself available anytime we’ve had a question or needed advice on things like vacations, vet visits and extended car rides. I’d highly recommend Mary based on our experience and encourage you to give her a chance to help if you find yourself in a similar situation to where we were with King. Thank you Mary! -Tom

I can't say enough about how helpful Mary has been! We had a pup who was sweet as could be but acted out a dog parks, and around other dogs, and just got too excited when she saw people. Thanks to Mary's help and guidance, and A LOT of training & positive reinforcement, our pups are doing so much better!! Even a neighbor who saw our two pups behave before training said they look like completely different dogs now, and one person even asked me if they were service dogs with how well they're trained! We constantly get compliments on how well they're trained, and hopefully they just keep getting better. I even took my dog to a dog park and she was able to react to a sweet pup without issue and played with him, which likely wouldn't have been possible just a 6 months ago. The improvement in our dogs behavior around people, other dogs and even each other, couldn't have been possible without Mary's help and guidance! I highly recommend investing in her services if you want to change your dog's behavior. It's really amazing the improvement we see and we can see how much less anxious our dogs are! Thanks Mary!!!

I came to Mary following a referral from a friend. I have a 1-year old Mini Goldendoodle dog who had progressively shown aggressive behavior (to the point he was biting us). We had exhausted our resources to gain control of our pups' behavior (other trainers, youtube videos, google articles, etc.). When we came to Mary, it felt like our last resort. I was SUPER impressed with her extensive intake form. Not only did it feel professional, but it felt like we could get some help. Even before the official session, Mary asked for a video of our dog being reactive. She gathered so much information for our 1st meeting—all of it to provide us with feedback, questions, and concerns. The first session was limited in training—but it was heavy on the feedback and identifying primary causes/triggers of aggression. We identified major areas of improvement, most of them dealing with the humans, not the dog. It’s not just training for your dog but also training for one (keep that in mind, you need to put some work in too)! She seeks and asks for content/updates on our pup even after our sessions conclude. She's super responsive to our inquiries and, honestly, takes the time to listen to us. I've written essays worth of e-mail detailing behavior, improvement, concerns (all in-between sessions), and she addresses it all via e-mail or through a scheduled session. Her responsiveness and willingness to help off-hours (i.e., not during scheduled sessions) indeed sold us on her want to help our pup (and us). She is not pushy nor adopts a salesperson persona; her goal is to help owners and pups. We have had 3-4 sessions with Mary. After our first introductory session + 1 training session, adopting her feedback and training methods, we progressively noticed a decrease in our pups’ aggressive behavior. We are about 6+ months out from our first session, and we go weeks (and now months) without a display of aggression. As an owner, I think one needs to be ready to go into sessions with Mary with an open mind and be ready to change your behavior vs. it just being for your dogs. I think that is one of the key things that Mary taught us, that our methods of playing and failing to read our pup's body language were exacerbating his aggression. She doesn't just help your pup, she ensures to eliminate outside factors (i.e., owner actions) that could be causing issues. All in all, she is great! We highly recommend her. If she makes any suggestions for toys—please take them. She made 2-toy suggestions and suggestions to change our harness, and it’s been revolutionary!

When I moved into a new apartment, my French Bulldog Rita was having severe separation anxiety and was having a difficult time dealing with all of the new noises and new environment. It was so bad that I could not leave her alone, even to check the mailbox right outside my door, without her crying loudly and disturbing my neighbors. She would cry and shake and it was horrible. I didn't know what to do about this, and my vet put her on medication and recommended I contact an animal behaviorist. I was skeptical at first and contacted Mary and explained what was going on and we did a video consultation, and Mary came up with a customized plan to help Rita get through her anxiety. The recommendations made sense, we followed the plan, and I felt comfortable through the entire process. It started gradually and then built up to a full day over time. After about a month of training and following the plan, I have been able to leave for a full 8 hours with no problems. She has gotten through her anxiety. Mary is a true professional and her plan and recommendations produced better results than I hoped for. I would highly recommend her to anyone with similar anxiety issues in their pet.

My chocolate Lab pup Monte was VERY reactive to other dogs and people on our walks, after working with with Mary within a couple of weeks he was just fine, walking calmly with no pulling, barking or lunging and he continues to get better everyday! We are working on in house issues now with barking and Monte has already shown improvement in this area too. I can’t recommend her enough, if you are In need of a good trainer please consider Mary