High Drive Dog Company

I got my dog, Gryff as a pup during Covid. I had no experience with training a puppy and working at home kept me close to him 24/7. Gryff became very attached to me, and showed aggression towards my cats. In an effort to reassure him, I kept giving him love and positive reinforcement that I loved him when he would become scared or protective of me. Little did I know I was only strengthening his fear based aggression and making it stronger. Last fall, he bit me and I was afraid that my dog would never be able to be in my home around other people or other animals. I felt trapped in my home with a dog I loved but also was afraid to be close to him. A friend recommended Carly…. and we elected to do the Board and Train program. Gryff stayed with the High Drive team for seven weeks and when he came home, he had learned so much!! But that is only half of what he needed…he needed me as his parent to know how to communicate with him in his language. My daughter and I enrolled in the Foundations class as part of the Board and Train program. Wow!! So much knowledge to soak in about being a better human for Gryff! During this journey I have seen Gryff transform into a more confident stable dog. He goes with me in the car (which he never would even get in!) to the brewery for beers, day trips to Estes, play groups with other dogs and the list goes on. I never dreamed I would have this kind of relationship with my dog!! We will begin the advanced class soon and I am so excited to see Gryff continue to become even more confident. Thanks to Carly, Gryff and I have a new life filled with all kinds of adventure. Had we not met the High Drive team, Gryff’s behavior would have continued to escalate and it may have cost me my dog and Gryff his life. Thank you, Carly! You have given Gryff a life full of new adventures and made me a better human. You and your team are professional, kind and responsive. We are so lucky to be part of the High Drive family! Your program is hands down the best training for dogs. Would recommend Carly and her team to all for this excellent training program!

If you want to truly learn how to train your dog to be a confident, well-behaved, responsive member of the family, then search no more. Carly at High Drive is unique in the world of dog-training, but incredibly effective - and smart in her approach. Carly helps you understand dog behavior in a way that is really eye-opening - I had no idea and was pretty much doing everything wrong in terms of managing my dog's behavior when I started the Foundations class. What's important to know about Carly's approach is that she trains the pet owner as much as the dog- probably even more so. Which makes total sense, if you think about it. Understand the dog and how to modify/manage the dog's behavior and the role of your own behavior and you’ll be able to effectively train your dog. We adopted a 9-month old rescue in January ‘23 who was a hot mess - terrified of everything and basically unable to cope and hard to train because of her fear. After 8 weeks of the Foundations class and a few days in High Drive daycare, Scout was completely transformed -- a new dog - I was blown away. Was it hard work? Yes. Was it frustrating at times? Yes. Did I get told multiple times that I was making mistakes? Yes. But I learned as my dog learned and that's the beauty of Carly's process. A lot of the negative reviews are from people who take the criticism personally - the goal is dog training, people! Do the work and take the feedback to heart and you'll be amazed at what you and your dog can achieve - it's incredibly rewarding to see the positive changes in your dog's behavior.

I would not recommend Carly / High Drive Dog Training. We completed the full 8wk foundation class, plus 5 days of daycare with one dog. We also had another dog in the middle of a foundations class, which we decided to end early (we unfortunately paid for everything in the beginning). - After ending our first foundations class, she suggested an e-collar for our first dog that completed training. I was not opposed to this, but wanted more information. When asking questions to educate myself she got VERY defensive, it is clear she takes questions as an attack on her. She went on a very unprofessional rant, saying she has done this for “10+ effing years and knows what she is doing so why am I effing questioning her”. This is nonsense, any responsible pet parent should ask questions about the training approach and anything else that you are paying for. In order to learn more about the e-collar, you need to pay for a private meeting with her plus buy the e-collar (~$500). This means that you have to pay before you decide if it is right for you and your dog. - Communication with the business is poor. The only channel is email, and the response time is DAYS. There is a text message option but only for cancelling at the last minute for daycare. - Daycare: you cannot ask anything about the daycare facility, nor can you see / inspect inside the facility. You don't know what conditions you are leaving your dog in; what the credentials are of the individuals taking care of your dog are; what type of space dogs are kept; what the safety precautions are; is it clean; do dogs have easy access to water (our dog came home EVERY time and drank a full bowl of water). Vaccination status of other dogs is unknown - she does ask you to confirm your vaccinations, but never asks for proof, so I am totally unsure about the other dogs' status that my dog was in contact with. - Carly was unprofessional and rude to us and others our entire experience with her, in class, in communications, and in daycare drop-offs. She is 100% aware of her unprofessional behavior, and openly acknowledges and actually jokes about this during class. - Read the negative reviews, they are 100% accurate and should be enough for you to explore other options in the area. I wish I would have done better research and asked around town, I would not have spent my money or time here otherwise.

The 1-star reviews here seem to be from people who can't take criticism. If your dog has behavioral issues, it's your responsibility to fix them and the way you've been interacting with your dog in the past has contributed to their behavior. That's a hard pill to swallow but the sooner you can stomach it, the better. I have so far only been to one class and my reactive dog has done a complete 180. It's been such an immediate difference that I'm wondering if I hit my head and am in a coma, where our walks exist in a fantasy dreamworld. We worked with three other dog trainers before going to Carly. All of those trainers used positive reinforcement techniques. The only corrective technique I was taught had to do with walking on-leash. This would only work with my reactive dog if I could get his attention before he started fixating and reacting. It was like nothing existed for him apart from his trigger. I was nervous about walks, and we crossed the street or tramped through snow to avoid dogs, men in hats, bicycles, x country skiers, runners, trucks... I also feared inviting friends over to our house because on occasion he would freak out at them. The past few days we have gone out of our way to walk past other dogs and he has stayed calm. We have not even had one reactive incident. Today, I went for a longer walk than normal because it was so pleasurable to be able to trust him again. As for the reviews about the foundations class -- the people who wrote here got it right: they do hand out prong collars (though I think it might be included in the price of the class now), she uses tools for corrections (water sprayer and noise makers), and there are a lot of other people in the class as well. There is a lecture and you are sitting with your dog the whole time. However, having now gone through multiple dog trainers who came to my house for 1:1 work, I prefer this method. Both my dog and I can watch techniques work in real-time on other reactive dogs. He's learning to stay calm in a weird environment that would normally be very triggering for him. And Carly is not mean, she is direct. She's not going to tell you what you want to hear all the time because you're not doing everything right. If you were doing everything right, you wouldn't need a dog trainer. So that's all. We should all grow thicker skins and we should all strive to raise dogs that can know what's appropriate in various situations.