Kathy Santo Dog Training

In the spirit of Christmas, I wanted to gift Kathy another review. Tonight I sat with my current trainer (part of an amazing, highly respected organization that actually uses cognitive and behavioral science, along with only CERTIFIED TRAINERS in their methods) we chatted about this facility, Kathy herself, and the horrific lasting effects that they imprinted on not only my mental health, but more importantly, my dogs. We sent our two labs there for what had to be two years almost daily. Full days of playcare, and hour long one on one training sessions.. typically both five days a week. I started to realize that Blue (who had been in training here for a very long time and had some known resource guarding issues) would act differently when he came home. He could barely make it out of the car without peeing for over a minute, and the smell would be so strong as if he’d been completely dehydrated and holding it for hours and hours. once inside he’d immediately run to the fridge and press the buttons to get the water dispenser to turn on because he was so thirsty. I raised these concerns with Kathy’s team. They said blue was drinking and peeing as normal and they weren’t aware of any issues at the facility. Weeks later we hear from a former employee of Kathy’s who had just resigned. This employee tells me that they were too afraid to say anything while working at the facility, but I was right to be concerned because while we were sending blue for playcare, he was being kept in a crate all day long with no water because he was “too aggressive” for playcare and “too aggressive” to have water in his crate. Now keep in mind that Kathy’s team had trained blue for over a year at this point. They know he is not dog aggressive. He is a resource guarder, which we are the first to admit, but he has never attacked or bit another dog. Do you think we would have gotten a second dog if his aggression was so bad? But also, at no point did Kathy or anyone else tell us that blue would not be able to attend playcare. She let us continue paying her thousands of dollars monthly, only to have our dog sit in a crate for 9 hours a day. The only reason we sent them there was so that they could socialize during the day while we worked and not be bored at home on the couch. If blue was too high of a risk to attend playcare in their eyes, we would have happily accepted that and understood and kept him home. But again, it was never communicated to us. Furthermore, when I talked to Kathy about this directly, she said the employee was lying because he was angry and that blue goes to playcare all the time. “Okay,” I said, if that’s the case, “send me video footage of blue in playcare.” Her response? “We don’t have cameras in the facility.” Which.. anyone with a brain would find a little crazy.. how could you not have cameras in a facility with so many dogs? months later a trainer very close to us and blue reached out to me to apologize for what Kathy made the staff do with blue. And apologized for all of the lies that Kathy told, but also for not telling us about them sooner. So please also realize, not only could we no longer trust Kathy, but also not the “trainers” that will hide the truth on her behalf to put their job over the wellbeing of your dog. So here we are Kathy. Years later and this is still one of the most traumatic memories of my life. I will never forgive myself for failing Blue by trusting him in your hands. It brings me to tears thinking about how much damage was inflicted to his behavioral issues by crating him all day rather than him being home and cared for with me. And if posting a review like this every so often protects one more dog and family from a situation like this, I’m happy to do it for the rest of my life. You will never convince me that you care about dogs. And I strongly believe you do not deserve the unwavering love and forgiveness that they give. Merry Christmas.

I've been wanting to try out Kathy Santo Dog Training for the longest time. We were so motivated by out first "Beginner" group class. Kathy and her team explained the first steps of training and communicating with my dog. Timing of commands/being clear with your dog/when to give a treat/ what type of treat (based upon the difficulty of the command) are all details that are so important. Also, it's very important to follow through at home with the skills taught in class. My dog actually insisted on continuing the exercises when we got home! We are very excited to "be a part of the KSDT family" and really understand how to communicate effectively with our dog.