Sandy Meadow Farm Obedience School

This is my second class at Sandy Meadow and I am thrilled with the progress of my German Shepherd pup. We started in puppy kindergarten and learned basic skills to get us started. We will soon be completing basic obedience and know that we will be continuing additional classes here. The trainers understand German Shepherd puppy and adolescence behaviors and provides various methods that allow us to be successful. The classes are small and not chaotic as I have experienced with other trainers in the past. The trainers do put a fencing around a dog that cannot control themselves in class which blocks the dogs from seeing the other dogs; however, once the owner follows the trainers instructions and the dog learns to settle appropriately in class this becomes a non-issue. Each class also includes an instructional booklet to help outside of class with homework. I found this booklet to be very helpful. The small class sizes allows each dog to receive one on one attention and the trainers use every dog in class during demonstrations. I found this to be a great place to train my German Shepherd pup and appreciate all the support and guidance provided by the trainers. German Shepherds are a special breed that require consistent work and training skills. Sandy Meadow has started me on this path and with their continued guidance our current plan is to continue our training towards Good Canine Citizenship and an ultimate goal of therapy dog. Jasper and I highly recommend the Sandy Meadow dog training classes.

I have been training at Sandy Meadow for about 5 years now. I have taken three very different breeds mastiff, Great Dane and English bulldog to several different classes from puppy, basic obedience Advanced and speciality Missy the owner and her trainers are really knowledgeable about so many different breeds and I have seen them time and time again tailor their approach with dog owner teams to create every opportunity for them to successfully learn the skill The training tactic that works for a German shepherd won’t necessarily work for a corgi. A lab or a Golden is so different from a beagle or a pug. Yet the trainers at Sandy Meadow work diligently with every one in their classes to help them succeed. The trainers stay after the session is over to answer one on one owners questions I have worked with many trainers over the years and learned a lot about working with dogs. Truthfully Missy has helped me take my skills to another level which has improved my relationship with my dogs Sandy Meadow is a facility that I have recommended and will continue to recommend as a great place to learn how to be a better dog owner and improve their relationship with their 4 legged family member

When I first arrived at this place for our first night of training, the staff was extremely uninviting and rude right from the start. The older woman working there mocked my dogs name stating she knew hundreds of German Shepherds named “Maximus”. As we go into the building the staff was already commenting how “wild”my 6 month old GSD is. We get put in the room with about 12 other dogs, mostly smaller dogs, one other GSD. Maximus is a very energetic and playful dog, and was distracted by the other puppies in the room. Therefore, they put up a visual barrier around us which was ok because it was needed. The training begins and as it’s going on, I realized that the trainers just about had forgotten about us behind our barrier. The only time they came over was when Maximus was barking and disturbing “their class”. There was no one on one training. We would have loved it they came over and showed us how to do it and then watched as we did it but they didn’t. About a week later they call us back and first accused Maximus of being aggressive. Which he is not one bit. Then they said they don’t think he is right for the class because he is very high energy and is distracted by the class. Isn’t that what dog obedience places are for???? To correct these behaviors??? This place is not worth anyone’s time. They said they would refer me to someone else, but they never did. Unless you have a little show dog do NOT bring your dog here because the staff is not equipped to handle larger, energetic dogs.