Spot-On K9 Training

My dog Gizmo started training with Stephen when he was about six months old- after he had already completed a course of puppy kindergarten. Gizmo learned so many important skills during his training with Stephen but more importantly I learned training skills! I had to leave NY for a while- so I continued Gizmo’s training with different trainers and I could absolutely tell the difference! I am telling you as someone who has done two courses of puppy kindergarten, a board and train program, at home training for about 12 sessions and recently learned from professional gun dog trainers in Ireland that Stephen is the absolute real deal! As Gizmo continues to get older and recently hit the adolescent phase, you can tell that the things he’s retained are the commands that Stephen taught us.

We are very grateful to the Spot-On K9 Training program — Stephen helped us break through to some of our dog Henry’s root challenges in a clear and direct manner. This provided a pivotal change in our dog’s journey that we will keep building upon. We highly recommend Spot-On for anyone looking for the tools for both their dog and for themselves. It is also nice to work with somebody that understands the nuances of having a dog in the city. That’s you, Stephen! Thank you again!

We took our 7-month Brittany puppy to Stephen to work on leash skills and off-leash recall introducing an e-collar. Our pup, being a high-energy breed originally bred for bird hunting, has a high prey drive for birds and squirrels, and we wanted to let him off-leash to run and enjoy Central Park but were afraid that he'd run off. Working with Stephen of Spot-On was a great experience. Our dog no longer pulls us around on walks and we also introduced "place" which has allowed us to take him to café patios, have him lie down, and be relaxed (we never thought he'd be a dog we could take with us to a patio without causing a disturbance). Finally, the off-leash recall has been excellent and we now take our dog to Central Park nearly every morning and it's a joy seeing him run and play, which also means he sleeps all day long when we get home he's so tired. We've never had an incident with him running off and have great piece of mind after Stephen trained both my wife and I in the use of the e-collar, and the dog to have strong recall. The only challenging thing was both Stephen and my wife and I have busy schedules so it took a few months to find mutual availability and complete all 5 classes so recommend for potential clients making time on weekdays so you can get through the classes quickly. However, we got homework each class so we still had things to work on every day ahead of the next one. Highly recommend booking for whatever your goals are with your dog!

We would totally recommend Stephen for dog training - ESPECIALLY if you are interested in gaining off leash skills. Our dog (Albie, a 1.5yr rescue) loves to play with other dogs and explore (but also likes to eat trash or whatever he finds AND can sometimes be "a lot" when trying to engage in play with other dogs) so we were really motivated to be able to train Albie to recall perfectly, leave it, heel etc so he could be independent in Central Park. Stephen's toolkit and teaching gave us the skill set to be able to have Albie off leash with 100% confidence in the morning and we all have the best time! We even sometimes will take him off (although not regulation) now during the afternoon and have him in heel next to us walking so that if no one is around we can let him so chase squirrels. his recall is perfect. he has gained a lot of home skills too, including most importantly, place training, esp as a reactive greeter when people come to the door. We are so proud of albies progress and we feels so lucky to have worked with Stephen and learned e-collar skills!

My Aussie, Margot, had bad reactivity to other dogs to the point where she would be a danger to herself and others. We took her to spot on to work with Stephen. He taught us how to properly use a prong collar which helped immensely with her aggression! We can walk her all over with minimal reactivity. He helped us better understand and read Margot’s actions to help protect her and predict her next move!