Roxie

Roxie is a five month old Boxer puppy. She lives in my old neighborhood from when I was growing up… I actually used to deliver the newspaper to her owners home as a child!

Roxie is a happy and social puppy, and just needs a bit of training and guidance to teach her not to jump on people and to follow Basic Obedience Commands. She is wonderful to work with and progress has been fast since her owners are very committed and dog experienced. I look forward to working with her again next week to work on the place command!

Archie from Auburn MA

Archie is a very large eight month old Bernadoodle.

His owners just started private puppy training and are very eager and excited to work on his jumping and pulling on lead. Archie is sweet, trainable and pretty laid back for such a young dog. I look forward to working with this gentle giant and his family!

Rocky the Golden Doodle Puppy

Rocky is a six month old Golden Doodle. His owners started training to be certain that he would be the best mannered puppy he could be, as their daughter has a physical disability. We have done extensive socialization and training to ensure that he has a great foundation to be a relaxed, confident and friendly adolescent. Rocky is an excellent student. He loves to learn and fits in really well with his committed and loving family.

Noah The Dog Who Never Lived In A Home

Noah is a 9 month old Boxer mix. A wonderful organization called Mutt Rescue shipped Noah here from down South so he could be adopted by a family from East Longmeadow Massachusetts. His new family are very kind and patient people, but it was obvious to them that Noah was really confused by many things that us dog owners take for granted from our dogs that have lived in a home all their lives. Noah enjoys people and other animals, but he never really developed any skills for living with a family, so we had to start with basic principles to teach him how to navigate in his new situation. He had to learn how to eliminate outdoors, accept a crate, learn to walk on a leash, navigate on stairs and in the car. This was all before we started to teach him obedience! I am happy to say Noah is doing excellent in all areas and has bonded really well to his family

Chico’s remarkable progress

Chico is a one year old Boston Terrie mix. His owner Ami hired me because of his extreme aggression towards men that visited. We quickly established a training program to obedience train him, while gradually exposing him to many men. I am happy to report that with dedication, behavior modification and positive experiences with different visitors that he is now a relaxed and predictable dog. He is now the best behaved dog in theIr household of three dogs! Great Work!

Hunter the Aussie

Hunter is a ten month old Australian Shepherd. His owners contacted me because he was exhibiting strong aggressive tendencies towards visitors and their other dogs. We worked extensively to give Hunter an outlet for his compulsive behavior. We also perfected his basic obedience and taught him the place command. The difference in Hunter has given his owners the confidence to keep him, and he continues to obtain more and more self control as we begin socializing him outside of the home.

Hunters owners recently allowed a child sleep over after many months of not feeling they could trust him. Hunter passed with flying colors. These devoted owners deserve a lot of credit for their effort and changing their own behavior so Hunters needs are properly met. Congrats!!!

Callie's New Home

Callie is a nine month old female yellow lab. She was recently adopted by a young couple with two toddlers that are both under three years old. Callie’s original seventy six year old owner obtained her at eight weeks old, a month later he became very sick and was hospitalized for over five months. During that time she was cared for by his family and friends, but spent long periods of time alone in his home. By the time her owner recovered Callie had become a big unruly puppy that had been given very little direction. Callie was not housebroken, became highly destructive, and jumped on humans incessantly.

Her owner realized that Callie now needed much more attention to “catch up” on all the training and socialization she’d missed. Sadly he decided to find her a new home. Callie’s new owner waisted no time getting in touch with me to come up with a behavior modification program and schedule for Callie. I am happy to say that Callie is just about completely housebroken now, isn’t jumping on people anymore and is much less excited and anxious. In three weeks she has learned to loose leash walk, to sit and stay and to go to her bed when instructed. Callie has three more sessions left. In that time we will be working on coming when called, following commands with tougher distractions and mastering how to down stay. I am so proud of Callie and her new young family for all her accomplishments so far.

Cooper the Golden Retriever Puppy

Cooper is a now twelve week old cream Golden Retriever. His owners contacted me before they even brought him home at eight weeks old. They wanted to be certain they were starting off correctly from the beginning with his socialization and training. They started my training program just a few days after his arrival! Cooper is really beginning to blossom. He has been riding in the car, meeting friendly dogs, getting used to traffic, learning how to relinquish resources, and is gradually experiencing all the things he will need to be a relaxed, confident and friendly adult.

Cooper is an excellent student and his owners are quite diligent about his basic obedience training. He is learning loose leash walking, sit, stay, down, come and place and really enjoys the positive feedback of training. Like most puppies his age we are still working on his nipping, but as time goes by he is improving in every area. I am very impressed with Cooper and his family, they really want Cooper to grow up to be an excellent member of their family!

Rocky's accomplishments

Rocky is an eight pound 5 year old poodle mix. His owners have had him since he was nine weeks old and decided they needed to change their relationship with him. Before we started training Rocky wasn’t housebroken, barked excessively for attention and was very fearful of other dogs. In six weeks we corrected his housebreaking errors by keeping him on a lead in the house with his owners at all times, except when they needed to be gone. We then utilized a small pen in the kitchen to prevent accidents. We also addressed his fear of dogs by introducing him to dozens of my other clients dogs. I wanted to be sure that I trusted the dogs he met, so his first experiences with dogs were positive. After meeting several different reliable dogs of different shapes and sizes over time, Rocky was ready to play! The last issue was to address his demand barking Rocky learned gradually that when he was quiet and calm that different types of rewards would be provided to him. Over the course of several weeks we made him go longer and longer stretches of being quiet before rewarding him. Rocky loves training, and once he understood that behaving in a certain manner meant his needs were met faster he blossomed into the dog his owners always wanted!

Brandy's World

Brandy is a nine month old German Shepherd that spent a month in my home and accompanying me to work each day.( Thanks Holly and Jesse ) Her eighty year old owner asked that I take Brandy for a month for him and train her on and off lead, and to correct her severe jumping problem. Brandy’s owner has good dog training skills and understands reinforcement he just needed some help getting things jump started because of his age. Normally I have some reluctance to take in a dog for training, since most dog owners find it difficult to then take the time to work with me and their dog for several sessions after the dog is trained. In Brandy’s case, her owner is quite dog experienced and is retired, so he had no trouble making time for the in home training afterwards.

Brandy was already well socialized with people and other dogs before I started working with her, so that made my job somewhat easier. Our first accomplishment was coming when called. It only too Brandy six days to learn this even in the face of very difficult distractions and in many different locations. Afterwards she mastered loose leash walking, Sit Stay, Down Stay, Leave it and Place. Her jumping on people naturally curbed itself with more exercise and training, and there were only a few times that she needed to me reminded that jumping wasn’t allowed once the training was completed.

I am very happy with the family support that Brandy’s owner receives. His family is very devoted to him and Brandy! Now that she is obedience trained and trained off lead she is no longer frustrated and gets much more exercise. Great Job Brandy!!

Pluto On the Road to a Better Life

Pluto is an eight month old German Shepherd from strong working dog background. He is the loved pet of a middle aged couple. Pluto's dog experienced male owner has owned five German Shepherd over the course of his life. He had never experienced any of the difficulties they were having with Pluto. Pluto was resisting handling, barking uncontrollably, and exhibiting the first signs of aggression towards humans and other dogs.  His male owner has developed some health issues that prevent him from being highly involved in training exercises. Pluto's female owner has no dog experience at all, but by necessity, has become the primary figure in his life. She is working very hard on the material that I give her, and perfecting one command at a time.  In addition Pluto is now getting an hour a day of aerobic exercise and enjoys dog daycare twice weekly to play and socialize with other dogs. Pluto is already a calmer must less anxious puppy, I look forward to his second half of training. 

Oscar The Fearful Coonhound

Oscar is a two year old Coonhound rescue dog from an animal shelter from down south. His owners contacted me because he was fearfully aggressive with some men that came to their home. Oscar was very timid when they first adopted him, but commonly shelter dogs don't exhibit all of their best or worse qualities for several weeks. (I call it that the honeymoon Period) Once Oscar started to come out of his shell it was clear that he was either poorly socialized to large gruff men, or had been mishandled. Oscar had bitten several people prior to our training, luckily  the rehabilitation process was the same regardless of his history. Oscar started by learning loose leash walking, even in the distant presence of people he feared, we kept a leash on him when visitors arrived, got him calmed down by redirection and instructed him to lie down next to one of the two adults in the household. I am happy to report that Oscar is now accepting visitors into the home without difficulty. His owners should be very proud of him and themselves for all their hard work.