I cannot begin to say enough good things about Courtney and her training. First a little back story-- I spent 12 weeks with my puppy in beginner and intermediate training with at Petsmart and then another few weeks in training at Petco before I called it quits and gave Courtney a try. I wish I had found her sooner.
Yes, you can bring your pet to a box store and get training there (usually by someone who has no background in training). You can load your dog up, drive to the store, sit there for an hour surrounded by other people/dogs, load your dog up and go home. Or you could hire Courtney who will come to your house. I can't even add up all the wasted time that I spent driving to and from Petsmart and all the gas. This alone is incredibly convenient.
Trust when I say that it is worth every penny to work with Courtney. I saw more improvement in my dog in less than a month than I did with almost 4 months of pet store "training".
Here are just a few awesome things about Courtney and her training... First of all, each dog has their own individual personality so what may work for one dog may not work for another dog. Here is where the pet stores fail. Courtney will get to know your pet and if something isn't working she will try another approach. Also, she is continually educating herself to be able to offer more to her clients which is great. She is so knowledgable about training dogs and it goes beyond basic commands, she can get much more in depth with her training. She will take the time to get to know your pet and actually care about them. I guarantee that nobody at Petsmart ever thought about my pet once I left their training sessions. Courtney checks in on my pup regularly to see if I have any questions or have been having any issues between lessons. In addition, her experience as a vet tech has been super helpful to me when I have questions about my dog or when I'm paranoid something may be wrong with her.
If you are serious about your dog being a member of your family and if you want to have a good relationship with them, you need to have a solid training foundation. It's priceless. You will spend more money in the long run trying to train at a pet store than you would with training with Courtney. Budget it in, it's a short term expensive for long term payoff.
That being said, be realistic and realize it takes work on your part to train your dog. It's like going to the gym, you can't expect to go once and see results. I promise if you invest the time and money into your dogs training you will see a huge improvement. People cannot believe how advanced my dog is for being just 8 months and I owe a lot of that to Courtney's guidance. read more