High Drive Dog Company

Carly at High Drive Dog Company transformed our dog completely! Following our veterinarian's recommendation, we sought Carly's expertise for our dog, who was terrified of people and overly eager to play with other dogs. Our dog used to lunge at people during walks, constantly bark, and pull towards other dogs. His fear of the outside world was so intense that even short walks around the neighborhood were a nightmare of panicked pulling, panting, and barking. The Foundation Class at High Drive Dog Company was a game-changer. It taught us how to communicate effectively with our dog and understand the principles behind his behavior. After completing this class, our dog overcame all his fear issues, becoming a happier and more confident companion. He now greets people with excitement and has even become friendly towards strangers. We continued our journey with the Advanced Drop-In classes to refine his behaviors further, and now we can hike with him off-leash without any problems. We cannot recommend High Drive Dog Company enough. While it is hard for the owners to learn how to correctly communicate and train their dogs at the beginning of the course, it is a much-needed mindset change and is worth sticking with! The best thing you can do for your dog is to take classes from Carly and shift your mindset about how to communicate with your dog and give them a better life!

Carly and the High Drive team helped our fearful and reactive dog become confident and stable. Prior to sending our pup to board and train at High Drive, we tried several positive only trainings and had only reinforced the reactivity and fearful behavior in our dog. Fear prevented our dog from being able to enjoy hikes, and otherwise enjoyable outings became difficult experiences that we barely knew how to manage. Thanks to Carly, her training philosophy, and the hard-working staff at High Drive, we now have a confident dog that loves to run off-leash and be around people, and, most important, we have established a clear line of communication that helps our dog navigate difficult situations and make good decisions. We looked around for board and trains for a while and were recommended Carly. Initially, we were intimidated by her training philosophy and the potential of being away from our dog with little updates and knowledge of what was going on day-to-day. Looking back, we didn't yet understand that Carly was helping us establish a more productive relationship with our dog and that the process would be challenging for us as well as our dog. Following the board and train, and the included follow-up sessions, we have come to better understand what Carly was trying to accomplish the entire time. We have an immense appreciation for High Drive and would recommend it to anyone, especially those with fearful and reactive dogs like ours.

Long read warning: Is Carly for everyone? No. Should that detract from the extremely valuable, comprehensive, unfiltered, direct and real information she provided? Not at all. Yes Carly is polarizing. Her own onboarding material makes that abundantly clear (if you didn’t read it). Carly LOVES dogs, she makes above and beyond efforts to be helpful and direct. If she tells you are doing something wrong, there’s a good reason. It may not be obvious at first but towards the end of foundations you’ll see why. Yes they are lecture heavy, but that’s on purpose, the issue isn’t the dogs, it’s the owners. We saw that first hand when we attended the classes, didn’t do the work and then had several fear incidents with our pup that led to biting. We came back, did the work, did the practice like we were supposed to and our dog is better than she’s ever been. She’s more confident, listens so well and can trust her to stay put while we go get food 30 feet away and will wait for us. All the “skills” that the dog needs can be taught in a couple of hours. The problem is us humans learning how dogs think and changing how we do this. That’s why the foundation is “lesson” heavy, anyone can teach dog tricks. This is not that, you are adopting a completely different mindset to dog behavior that will outlast any “trick” you can teach your dog. We will go anywhere Carly does to teach our future dogs period. We are eternally grateful for her and her teams dedication, do not pass up the opportunity, this is worthwhile like any program that’s there to help you, not make you feel better because you “tried”.

If you’ve been reading all the reviews and been confused about the huge discrepancy in ratings, and don’t know whether this will be the worst or best thing for your dog, I totally get it. I was in the same boat and hesitantly signed up for the foundations class. This is what I’ve learned so far after having two group training classes: 1) Carly is neurodivergent and on the spectrum. She sends an email out about this before beginning your first class. That means she’s direct, super knowledgeable, and is hyper-focused on helping you understand how to shift your behavior. She’s obsessed with helping people understand their dogs. And it shows. The people that say she is “rude” are taking her training feedback as a personal insult rather than constructive criticism. Last week, Carly gave instructions to a dog parent to use a shaker with a marker word when the dog barks at her. Literally, the person didn’t listen, and then let the dog continue to bark. Carly had to repeat it three times and then finally became frustrated. I can’t even imagine how annoying it must be when she points out how to fix a behavior and the dog parent doesn’t listen. So, I’m kind of wondering if the people that complain in the reviews about Carly didn’t follow instructions and then got appropriately snapped at. 2) This is my third dog trainer/class. I adopted a two year old German shepherd/husky mix that was found in the middle of a field in Texas. She had no idea what a leash, car, stairs or toys were. She also ignored treats when I tried to train her, so I was in tears with an overly alpha dog that didn’t respond to anything. The other classes we went to talked about markers and force feeding her treats, but never marking bad behavior. So, she learned a bunch of tricks, but never stopped being leash aggressive or having poor social skills. Almost everything I’ve learned in this class is opposite of what I was told with the last two trainers - they created more “coddling” behavior in me and ultimately, my dog has suffered because of it. 3) I honestly thought I was a decent dog parent before going to the classes and then I realized I had really high standards without creating opportunities for my dog to be smarter. I’m a therapist and I know that the parents that make everything easy for their kids actually inhibit their children’s resiliency and growth in self-trust. It never occurred to me that dogs are the same way (apparently they have the same intelligence as three year olds). 4) My dog currently goes to daycare 3x per week, but I am switching to High Drive this week because she still exhibits fearful and anxious behavior and the daycare doesn’t reinforce good training skills. I’m excited that what she is learning will be maintained and reinforced. 5) After only two classes, she no longer pulls hard on her leash, avoids other dogs barking at her through fences, and remains next to me when we walk and another dog or person is on the other side of the street. It’s amazing! 6) Beyond wanting my dog to be more confident and stable, my dream has been to be able to take her on hikes and bring her to public spaces and trust that she can handle it. We are a ways out, but I can see in only a couple classes that this will be possibility someday once we have built up her skills and I’ve let go of some of my bad habits. It’s so exciting - her world is about to open up and it’s only been two training sessions! 7) If you’re still reading this, my feedback is this: Sign up if you truly want to change your relationship with your dog. If you decide to go, then you will also need to practice not taking things personally. One of the most beautiful things about dogs is that they don’t take things on like humans do, so going is an opportunity for them to learn and for you to practice being neutral and open on an emotional and intellectual level. See you there! 🫶

I signed up my new husky for the foundation course about 5 years ago. I was ok with teaching my dog down-stay next to my chair but there was an excessive amount of time spent on lecture and not enough active training. Then one evening she told the woman next to me to get her dog out from under the chair and onto the rug. The woman was old and struggled to move her dog but couldn't. Instead of assisting her, Carly verbally chastised and humiliated her in front of the whole class. I was horrified. Carly then told the woman to leave and come back later after she had practiced more! Carly is egotistical, outrageously rude if you dare question her, and has zero people skills. I guess she never learned that animal training, whether it's dogs, horses, whatever, is more about people management than animal training.