FirstBark
Please read my response to Steve below We decided after four lessons that this was definitely not a good fit. Steve is too aggressive. I've had two previous service Dogs the training was not like this. We requested a refund, they refused to do that after paying $4300 and only re…Read full reviewClose full review
Please read my response to Steve below We decided after four lessons that this was definitely not a good fit. Steve is too aggressive. I've had two previous service Dogs the training was not like this. We requested a refund, they refused to do that after paying $4300 and only receiving four lessons. Steve likes to bring his politics into his classes which is incredibly unprofessional. I would definitely think twice before taking your dog here. If you need a guard dog or a bomb sniffing dog or some kind of police dog, maybe this is a good fit but a dog for CPTSD is absolutely the wrong place. I find Steve's response to my review quite disturbing. It seems he believes that survivors of trauma—such as veterans and victims of sexual assault—are "mentally ill." This is deeply troubling, especially when we think about the men and women who have sacrificed so much in service to our country, and those of us who have endured years of violent sexual assault as children. I feel like his response is an attempt to shame me into removing my review. Let me be clear: I am not mentally ill. I own and operate three thriving businesses, one of which is a contracting company that is extremely stressful, and the other is a real estate brokerage. I don’t think someone who successfully builds six homes at a time—coordinating dozens of contractors, managing inspectors, and handling 10's millions of dollars in real estate transactions—is mentally ill. Steve’s claim that the cost was $2,800 is also a lie. The actual cost was $4,300. He charged my card, telling me I had to pay for all the training upfront, but provided no syllabus, no contract, and no milestones. He didn’t even clarify that I was paying him to have me train my dog, rather than him doing it himself. I disputed $3,300 of the cost, leaving $1,000 for his time over the four classes. It was my fault for not requiring this up front but I'm a trusting person sometimes to my own demise. Anyone who asks him if he would train a service dog for $2,800 will get laughed at. I’ve paid about $5,000 every time for proper service dog training and I’m not willing to do the work myself. That’s why I hired him—to do the work. In contrast, previous trainers took my dog, trained them, and then spent time with me to show how I could manage the dog. That’s the service I expected, but unfortunately, I did not receive it from Steve. If you take a look at Glass Door and other review sites you'll get a real measure of the quality of work. Dig deeper than just google