FirstBarkTraining with Karen gave our 2.-year-old Yorkshire Terrier, Pepe’, - and us - confidence and the ability to thrive in new environments and situations. We’re forever grateful for Karen’s love, patience, and consistent methods. Because of her, we can now observe and engage with Pepe’ as he enjoys the world with confidence. Karen is truly stellar!
Training with Karen
Millsboro, Delaware
About Training with Karen
Training with Karen provides professional, real-world dog training focused on obedience, behavior modification, and long-term reliability. Services include private dog training lessons, in-home training, puppy foundations and socialization, and immersive board and train programs ranging from one to six weeks. Training is customized for each dog and household, with an emphasis on structure, clear communication, leash skills, and confidence building. Karen works with puppies, adolescent dogs, and adult dogs struggling with reactivity, anxiety, impulse control, or household manners. All training is practical, individualized, and designed to help dogs succeed in everyday environments, both at home and out in the world.
Training & services
Training goals
- Behavior consultation
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Behavior modification training for dogs struggling with reactivity, anxiety, impulse control, or overstimulation. Programs focus on clarity, structure, and confidence to create reliable behavior changes over time.
- Crate training
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- House training
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Guidance and structure for dogs or puppies struggling with house training. We build clear schedules, supervision, and routines so your dog understands when and where to go.
- Leash training
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Leash training focused on calm, controlled walking without pulling or reactivity. Dogs learn proper leash pressure, engagement, and structured movement for safer and more enjoyable walks.
- Obedience training
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Training designed to improve behavior inside the home, including boundaries, door manners, place training, and impulse control. Ideal for dogs that struggle with structure in everyday household situations.
- Puppy training
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Puppy training that targets nipping, jumping, overexcitement, and early behavior issues alongside basic obedience. We give you structure, routines, and clear strategies for raising a well-mannered young dog.
- Socialization
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Structured puppy training focused on confidence, social exposure, boundaries, and early obedience. Ideal for puppies learning how to navigate the world calmly while building a strong foundation for future training.
Behavior support
- Counter surfing
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- Fear and confidence
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Confidence-building training for nervous, uncertain, or environmentally sensitive dogs. Sessions focus on exposure, structure, and trust-building to help dogs move through the world calmly and safely.
- Reactivity training
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How training happens
- Board and train
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A focused reset week where your dog lives with me in a home environment and trains daily. We introduce or refresh core obedience, leash skills, and household manners, then send you home with clear instructions to keep it going.
A two-week, real-life immersion program to build reliable basics and better behavior at home and in public. Your dog stays with me, practices obedience, leash skills, and structure every day, and you receive follow-up support so results carry over.
A three-week program for dogs who need more repetition and proofing. We strengthen obedience, leash skills, and household manners around distractions so your dog can listen more consistently in everyday life
An intensive four-week program designed for dogs needing a full reset in structure, obedience, and behavior. Your dog lives with me, trains daily in real-world environments, and you get follow-up lessons at home to maintain the new habits.
A five-week program for more complex behavior patterns or dogs that need extra time to change routines. We focus on calm, clear structure, obedience, leash manners, and confidence building in a variety of environments.
A long-form, six-week immersion for dogs requiring extensive real-world practice and habit change. This program provides daily training, structure, and exposure, with owner coaching to support long-term success at home.
- In-home training
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Customize training sessions held in your home so we can address behavior where it actually happens. Ideal for household manners, door behavior, routines, and everyday structure.
- Owner coaching
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- Pack walks
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- Private training
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Dog age
- Adult dogs
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- Puppies
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Training support for puppy vet visits and similaroutings. We focus on calm handling, confidence, and cooperative behavior so your puppy has better experiences at the vet and in new environments
Training level
- Advanced training
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- Beginner training
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Support between sessions
- Follow-up support
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Training approach
- E-collar training
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Additional services
- Boarding
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Other listed services
View 8 additional details
- Dog Sitting
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- Dog trainer
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See my webpage at Trainingwithkaren.org - Check out Services for detailed information of my programs.
- New Dog
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- Old Dog
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- Personalized Consultation
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A structured consultation to review your dog's history, behavior, and goals, and to recommend the best training plan. We discuss realistic expectations, safety, and next steps before beginning any program.
- Pet Sitter
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- Post Training
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- Training Help
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Confirm current programs and availability directly.
Customer reviews
Google listing5
25 Google reviews
Mentioned in reviews
- confidence building 6
- leash training 4
- board and train 3
- harmonious environment 3
- emotional regulation 2
- flexible scheduling 2
All 10 topics
- impulse control 2
- personalized training 2
- responsive to questions 2
- thank you karen 2
Google review topics, not confirmed services.
We had our first training session with Karen this morning. She is kind and patient and caring, all the while teaching, training not only our three dogs, but also US. I do believe that there is a direct correlation between owners and pets. We have developed some really bad habit…Read full reviewClose full review
We had our first training session with Karen this morning. She is kind and patient and caring, all the while teaching, training not only our three dogs, but also US. I do believe that there is a direct correlation between owners and pets. We have developed some really bad habits and will be working diligently to correct and provide the dogs with true leadership. I am looking forward to a better life with our dogs. she not only is traing our
Karen is great to work with and Lily is doing well. Her Mom still needs practice on sequencing, and is working to get it all down correctly.
When we adopted Zimmy, a 4-year-old Airedale, we expected an acclimation period and basic training work. What we didn't appreciate was how much of a project Zimmy would become. As we soon discovered, she had endured some rough early years — neglect, instability, life in a doggy d…Read full reviewClose full review
When we adopted Zimmy, a 4-year-old Airedale, we expected an acclimation period and basic training work. What we didn't appreciate was how much of a project Zimmy would become. As we soon discovered, she had endured some rough early years — neglect, instability, life in a doggy daycare instead of a home — and it showed. Explosive greetings, mouthiness, intolerance to downtime, and frenzied reactions to mailmen, dogs, cats, kids on bikes, Amish buggies, lawn ornaments, and on and on. She was impulsive, mischievous, and fiercely headstrong. Nevertheless we were smitten. "It's a good thing she's cute," we told ourselves, often. But we were in over our heads. After introductory discussions with Karen, we started in-home lessons in February ahead of a board and train program. Karen didn't just work with Zimmy, she worked with us, explaining the *reasoning* behind the techniques, and patiently fielding our questions between sessions. The yes/no marker system, impulse control work, "place" and "crate" commands, recall, emotional regulation — the pieces started to click. Karen helped us understand what we were actually trying to accomplish. By the time Zimmy was Delaware bound with Karen in May, we were already seeing real, measurable progress. What happened over those next weeks was remarkable. Zimmy got to experience beach towns and boardwalks, picnics and festivals, pet stores and Lowe's, movie nights, a Golden Retriever convention, and a nose-to-nose greeting with a horse. Karen sent daily updates — written recaps, photos, videos — making it all feel close to home. We watched Zimmy learn to hold a "down" while shoppers walked past her, sit calmly while strangers greeted her, get a thorough breed-specific grooming, AND eventually coexist in glorious harmony with Karen's spunky feline assistant, Chippy. To his enormous credit, and to our astonishment, Chippy treated Zimmy with the patience of a saint and the authority of a lion. We award Chippy SIX stars. Midway through the stay, Zimmy seemed maybe a little off — subtler signs than you'd normally flag, but Karen knew Zimmy's medical history and trusted her gut. She reached out, drove Zimmy several hours back to our local vet the next morning to get checked out, then stopped by for an impromptu in-home lesson. Zimmy was *her* dog for that month, and we saw that compassion, dedication, and proactivity firsthand. Zimmy returned home in June still very much the Zimmy we had grown to love, but with a new side that we noticed immediately — calmer greetings, impulse control, fast post-distraction recovery, and leash manners. That day, we practiced walking Zimmy past our neighbor's dog lunging and barking at the fence, and Zimmy nailed what once seemed impossible. With her outsized presence, Zimmy continues to reintegrate into our home alongside her older brother Cooper, adapting her new mindset to familiar routines and stimuli. She's as energetic as she is clever, a classically stubborn Airedale, and we can envision the work we still have ahead of us. But as each day passes, there are small moments, moments that would seem trivial to anyone who hadn't witnessed Zimmy's old ways, where even without direction from us, she's making good, simple, levelheaded decisions. She's taking afternoon naps in her crate instead of perching in surveillance mode at our front window. She's pausing at open doors and looking to us instead of blindly barging through. When passersby can't help but approach to remark on her cuteness, she welcomes the attention with newfound poise. Karen established that foundation, and with her help navigating the transition home, we have the know-how and assurance to build on it. We're immensely grateful to have Karen as Zimmy's "trainer for life." One of the hardest parts of all this was seeing Zimmy on her homecoming day, nose to the living room window, watching with longing as Karen drove off. We look forward to Karen dropping by if she's in the area, and if we ever need more extensive training or boarding, we'll know right where to go.
Karen is training my Rottweiler puppy. She is so great with him. I can see his progress. I would definitely recommend her.
Original customer experiences from the collected Google data. Ratings without comments follow written reviews.