"I Said Sit!" School for Dogs

We felt helpless to change our dog's behavior from when we got her as a 3 month old puppy until 5 years old when we found Mike's book and consulted with him. Using Mike's guidance and techniques Lila was a new dog in about 3 weeks. We were able to rewire her behavior at the core, which no trainer or veterinary behaviorist was able to do. Our dog is also much happier and less anxious. Thank you Mike!

I had overall a negative experience here and view it more as a daycare than a training facility. Most importantly if you do not read the entire post, know that your dog will only get THIRTY minutes of training a day, despite being there for 8-10 hours on average. Below are my challenges with my expereince. I paid for a month of training sessions and boarded my dog for one week. I have also shared this with the organization. 1. I think there was a poor initial assessment of Louie's ability. There was not a clear list of what would be trained and the goals for training. The website listed an ambiguous lesson plan and when I asked before signing up, I recived an around about answer. I was dissapointed that the first week of him being away all day, I had no follow up to know what he was working on, progress report, how he did all day, etc. That is something that even daycare provides, yet this was a very expensive training program and I did not recieve that until the end of the first week. Poor communication. 2. It was incredibly frustrating to learn toward the end of the month of training, that he only recieve THIRTY minutes of individual training each day. This was not advertised and I would not have selected this program if I knew that. I essentially paid for daycare. My dog picks up commands incredibly fast and if even an hour was spent with each dog daily which is not unreasonable (out of an average of 8 -10 hours of being with there), the amount of learning that could have been done would likely be cut in half. It seems to me that there is the goal of having more dogs to make profit with less attention, rather than the goal of actually training each dog. 3. I felt "nickel and dimed" - If I asked ahed of time to move a 1:1 session to another time that also worked for the trainer, I was told that I would be charged $25. After spending over $3,000, this is aboslutely ridiculous. I had final presentations for school and had to prioritize that for the day at the last minute. Luckily I had this charge removed. 4. . While Louie was boarded, I had to ask for updates, although I paid for them ahead of time. I have no way of knowing if the other extras I paid for took place, such as the walk, extra treats, brushing out, extra training time, etc. Essentially I paid over $100 extra for nothing that I can confirm even took place. 5. Walking on leash was not introduced - I paid for two, two week programs back to back. I'm shocked that when I boarded him for a week and requested an extra walk, that I was told he hadn't done any walk training before that and therefore it would have to be done with a trainer. How in one month of being there virtually all day, did he not do any walk training, while it is known that I am already taking him on walks at home? 6. "Come" and "Stay" with distractions - We are still struggling with this at home. Considering he picked these commands up in 15 minutes of training with me before I brought him to school, I am confused why this was not focused on at school. I do not beleive it was too advanced.

The owner of this place was so generous with her time on the phone when I called to enquire about help with disciplining my adopted dog. Even though she couldn't offer the menu of services during Covid that would customize to my needs, she was as helpful with me on the phone as if I were a full time client needing support. I had been taking my dog to the dog park regularly to tire her out because she could run with other dogs and get exhausted without me having to exert energy to keep up with her. The advice was brilliant: "do you want to condition your dog to be an athlete and require you to meet her athletic running need every day? At a park she has no discipline or structure, she can run all over the place, but if you walk her daily, you bond and you can enforce her listening to you." I'm paraphrasing, but for me that was great advice and I was compelled to write this review for her generosity with her time.