Patience Inspired Dog Training

We brought our bernedoodle puppy Luca here for puppy obedience class. I would fully recommend! They give all puppies 10-15 minutes to free play before class which is one of the best ways to socialize a young puppy to behave well with other dogs. Our class trainer Danielle was super helpful and clearly cared about each and every dogs success. Definitely going to sign up for the next level obedience class!

My partner and I brought our new rescue dog who is highly reactive and has a history of neglect/abuse to Patience Inspired Dog Training first for a private session (on our suggestion), then (on their advising) a group class. I called beforehand to explain exactly his situation, behavior and level of reactiveness, to ensure they felt prepared to take him on. For the private session we didn't meet with Michelle, who is the head trainer and the only CPDT-KA according to their website. Instead we met with someone else who trains under her. The private session went fine, we learned some basic commands to use with him, but not much insight or guidance regarding his reactivity. At the end of the class we were told that we could join the group class (despite us multiple times voicing concern and doubt, and reiterating his level of reactivity that we had witnessed around people and dogs). At this point we had only had our dog for a couple of weeks and thus we were trusting their guidance and experience to steer us in the right direction. The group class went very poorly. We received no real direction even how to introduce him to the space, and felt that the attitude was entirely too laid back. We did all the leg work on our end to make sure he came into the room in a safe way and stayed far from the other dogs in the beginning. He was WAY above threshold and out of control the entire time, and since it was a group class we received very little support or guidance on how to bring him back below threshold, beyond a basic redirection command that was clearly not working at all. We spent the remainder of the class alone outside, and at the end learned that Michelle had been on the premises but that her employee decided not to call her to advise, even though she told us "Michelle is more behavioral". We ended up calling Michelle the next day to discuss the best options moving forward and wanted her advice. We didn't receive anything concrete beyond taking him to the vet for a checkup (we told her he had been several weeks prior), and felt once again that our concerns were not heard. Since then we have been meeting with a private trainer who has helped him make steps in the right direction and given us lots of helpful guidance and behavioral insight regarding his situation. Bottom line, this might be a good place for dogs to receive basic training and with some light behavioral problems. I can only speak about our experience, but from our perspective this wasn't a place that was well-equipped for a dog in our situation. We wish this had been communicated to us and handled differently.