Staten Island Companion Dog

Let’s be honest. This is a pretty cute senior citizen convention but NOT the staff to train your dog. There’s not a single young trainer in the facility and the energy level of trainers provided is far from the ability to train young energetic dogs, several at the time at that, or do half the stuff that’s advertised on their website for into classes. Training grandmas have a pretty high passive aggressive factor and make passive aggressive comments all throughout the sessions, they never understand the question and divert the answer somewhere in a different direction replying with what they know, rather than what was asked, rude, brief answers not only towards me but other members as well were in the air during my classes. The environment was what I would consider toxic. They also mis understand/ don’t understand a lot, which had happened to me more than once where trainer “mis understood “ what I was asking. I honestly don’t understand where their rating comes from. This is far from friendly learning environment. If you’re looking to socialize your dog and teach it basic commands this is not the place you wanna take it to. Prior to bringing my dog here we went to petsmart and the staff there is so friendly, dogs are allowed to come up to each other and play with each other if they wish, socialize, get to know the environment, this place is strictly rules and they allow no dog communication. All the commands that were taught here my dog knew before coming here so it was a waste of money for me for one, they don’t teach leash free walking upon the completion of the introduction course as advertised. In fact I’d probably pick pet smart over this place bc in addition to just learning the commands it was paired with hand gestures that my dog could understand and still does. This place does not do that. They just give you a leaflet at first class hoping you’d teach your dog everything yourself. We’ve completed their course but to say we’re less than happy and our expectations weren’t that high to begin with is an understatement. We literally learned NOTHING, wasted our time and money. If you really want you dog to learn something you have to hire a one on one trainer which is what we ended up doing and he was doing better in two weeks already. If you want your dog to socialize take it to shop classes and or doggy parks . This place served no benefit for us what so ever and the nasty customer service made it worse.

Our first day of class- we didn’t know what to expect. Koda Bear was a difficult student to say the least-barking, whining, tugging and jumping! With the support and patience of Janet, Desma and John.. we began to see so much growth in Koda! Koda made strides week by week. Their constant encouragement and praises as well as their sound advice and fool proof strategies has not only benefited Koda in so many ways but for our family as a whole! The dedicated instructors are true and knowledgeable experts in this field and they care. We feel a bit more confident and validated as we work with Koda on his journey/training. Looking forward to continuing the practice as the learning never ends. We are excited for our next stop:Beginner 2!

My husband and I are taking agility for fun class with our dog Maximus. We’ve taken 10 classes with our dog already and this by far is the most fun class we ever took. Our dog cannot wait his turn to go into the ring. He gets so excited. He doesn’t want to leave the ring. Kristine is knowledgeable, experienced, fun, and overall an amazing teacher. She is calm and gentle with my dog when he’s getting excited, yet firm enough that he listens to her I highly recommend this class.