The Dog Way - Expert Dog Training Services, Portland OR

I’m sitting here looking at my calm, submissive, affectionate, 23 month old Rottweiler, Ivy. She is a joy now but this wasn’t how I felt about her 19 months ago, before my husband and I took her to Shawn at Canine Country. She is our 4th Rottweiler and by far the most challenging. She was a confident and fearless 10 wk old puppy when we got her from the breeder. She quickly showed signs of aggression, biting us when we tried to take something away from her or make her do ANYTHING she didn’t want to do. I knew I was in over my head with this one. None of my training methods used on my other dogs were remotely effective and she was getting worse by the week. Biting our granddaughter on the thigh when she tried to take a sock out of her mouth was the last straw. As I was picking up the phone to let her breeder know we were sending her back, my husband suggested we take her to Shawn who was highly recommended by our neighbor. My first conversation with Shawn was over the phone. I could sense his passion and conviction for his tried and true philosophy. He spent 20 minutes pouring as much information about this philosophy in my ear like a fire hose. Everything he said made sense as his methods come from the perspective of how dogs learn in the pack. Our brains needed rewiring and I knew he would be a good teacher and coach for us. When we showed up to his beautiful and well maintained facility for our first training he greeted us warmly and sat a while on the tailgate of our SUV while getting to know us and mainly our puppy. Training began with her the moment he took her by the leash. She immediately responded well to his Alphaness. It really took less time to train her than it did us. We needed the most work. When we did things Shawn’s way, establishing our rules and consistently, firmly following through, our relationship with Ivy improved immensely. When we got lazy and fell back into our old ways of dealing with her, we lost her respect for us as leader. Shawn is strong for us because he knows how much we stand to lose and how serious the consequences can be to live with an aggressive, disrespectful dog. He is passionate about helping humans and canines live in harmony together. We gave up on taking our dogs to dog parks to play after a couple of past bad experiences with aggressive dogs. So we are so glad we can safely board Ivy twice a week for the day knowing that Shawn only allows dogs trained by him in the fenced property to roam freely together. They are monitored closely and trained not to bite or growl during play and NO aggressive behavior is tolerated. Ivy loves it and the regular socialization and training has helped her behave well with family and friends dogs who come to our home. As a teacher, I have adopted his philosophy of balancing firmness and authority with love and speaking belief into my students. I have gained more respect than ever from even my most challenging students and there is a great spirit of joy in the classroom as my students are clear about expectations and consequences. None of our previous Rottweilers were as well behaved at such a young age. Ivy is confident and happy. So are we. We highly recommend Shawn to anyone.

I'm rating by first impression only. I called to get information. He returned my call, didn't immediately introduce himself as someone from canine country, spoke poorly of his competitors, made ugly (and untrue) accusations about my training methods after I told him my puppy has been having aggression issues, and then he ranted about those methods for about 5 minutes. He then moved on to gloat about his methods. He rambled on about that for awhile. I finally squeezed in a question that he never answered directly. I listened to twenty minutes of rambling. From my point of view, he lacks professionalism and customer service skills. It looks bad when people talk poorly of their competitors and when you gloat about your experience. It looks bad when you don't let a potential customer speak. He should be getting to know our needs and then when the classes start, THAT is when he should let out all of that word vomit.