We rescued a Great Dane mix who was a street dog in Mexico. She was very frustrated on a leash. She is very social and wants to meet all the dogs she sees but she's big and looks aggressive when she sees a dog on a leash. Mary was referred to us by our vet. We had an amazing experience with her. She taught us how to help Annabel not practice her leash frustration. With consistent practice, Annabel's progress was significant and it has made our lives with her so much more enjoyable. We have even taken her camping with a campsite full of dogs and she done so well. I am so proud of her and so grateful for Mary. She is the true dog whisperer! read more

Crawford Canine Connection - Our Annabel - Pet Training Near Me

See all

The team is extremely dedicated to improving behavior in pets, and it was very clear that they are enthusiastic and care about dogs. I do want to note this aspect as a positive prior to the rest of my review. My hubby and I viewed the rest of the experience as strange and similar to an SNL skit that played out in our own lives. Read on to hear the whole saga... We chose not to move forward with them because of a bizarre experience with them. From the beginning, it was a very strange interaction as they focused exclusively on building a relationship with our dog but not with me. One of their trainers called me on the phone (kind of like a secret agent tasked with a mission) and parked a ways away from my home on an easement that runs on the border of my house. When I met her, like a typical hu-man I was going to say hi to her and started approaching her, but she commanded me to walk away from her and not make any contact. Um, ok...weird but if it helps my anxious pup fine. I walked away from her, and they proceed to follow us, throwing cheese and meat at me and my dog. Um...ok...getting super weird and pretty rude to not introduce yourself and then proceed to throw meat and cheese at me and my dog on my property but I guess you're trying to show everyone who's the alpha. My dog honestly looked really confusedly at them. She didn't bark and happily ate the food but I was pretty uncomfortable. Next I was instructed to follow them. NO, not that close, back up they noted (I was already about 6 feet away). At this point, in the hot son with cheese and meat being thrown at my feet I was done, especially because they walked into my property and home and immediately tried to establish dominance with not just my pup, but me personally. Uh...sorry you're still a guest on my property. They comically threw cheese everywhere on my property, with my dog confused and sometimes not eating it. I watched as a piece slipped through the slats of my porch, likely to mold and cause a bad smell when the sun got to it, because my dog didn't have a chance to (might I add they had fanny packs and were just whipping the food at both of us at this point). We got into the house and it got worse. I thought they were just going to ask us questions and show some helpful tips, but they instead sat down at our table, asking if my cat had an allergy to the food. No...i said...before they immediately started throwing cheese and meat on the ground in our home. I looked in horror, as they hadn't asked about my son who did have a severe (anaphylactic) dairy allergy but they kept on. My dog was pretty good about eating it, but during their convo I watched as small pieces of cheese got stuck to our floor. [My husband reading this review asked me to add this: at one point the cheese got stuck to my toe, with the trainer apologizing, necessitating the words 'the cheese that just bounced off of me? that's ok...just keep going.' which is still a joke in our household to this day'. Making matters worse, their 'interview', while thorough lasted the entire 2 hours. They did not suggest improvements, and did random things like measure pupilary dilation (um, yes my dog is a nervous wreck and you're making the entire household one too!) or where her tail was when it was pretty clear holistically what was going on with her. We finally had to ask them to leave because it was going over time (about 3 hours) and they hadn't shown us any techniques, telling us they were establishing 'rapport'. In the end, we were left cleaning up a sticky cheese floor, with an aversion to dog training, and with a still anxious pup. read more

Oh my goodness, we are so grateful to Mary and Crawford Canine Connection for the help with training our Great Pyrenees, Maisie. We adopted Maisie about 6 months ago, at age 2.5, and she came with a wonderful personality, but was super fearful of riding in the car. As we potentially wanted to see if she could be a therapy dog one day, we knew that getting her comfortable riding in a car was key. Also, since she pushes 100 pounds, it's terribly hard to dead lift her into a car; and we wouldn't want to even if we could. It was important to us that she become adjusted to the car, if only for vet rides. Maisie also needed some training for sit, down, recall, etc. And, we also worked on crate training. Turns out she was also terribly afraid of a crate. We worked with Mary weekly, for about three months, and could not be more pleased. She coached us and then sent detailed and specific homework, often including links to videos for further clarification. Mary was also quite responsive when we had any questions. Maisie now has manners, she gets into her crate and relaxes there, and she is beginning to take short rides in the car without any fear at all. We are working up to longer rides (because with positive behavior training, you go the dog's pace), but I have no doubt in my mind that Maisie will get there because she has come so far. We will continue to practice our training and are delighted that because of Crawford Canine Connection, we have a dog who is more safe and happier than ever. Highly recommend. read more

Mary is wonderful, caring and a true dog whisperer. She is flexible with scheduling and great at alleviating problematic behavior.

My partner and I adopted our then 4 year old West Highland White Terrier (Westie), Wrigley, in January 2022. Wrigley had, for several years, been a breeding dog living in Colorado. Because of that, he had always been around other dogs and people - at any given time, there were at least 6 other dogs and at least 1 person in his home ready to give him attention or keep him occupied, and this had likely been the case since he'd been a puppy. Understandably, when we adopted him and moved him into a previously pet-free apartment in Seattle, Wrigley started suffering from intense separation anxiety. Initially, we thought he just hadn't been crate trained. For about three months we tried to ween him into being comfy in a variety of different crates in the case that we had to go out to run errands, get groceries or go to work. We struggled immensely with crate training - Wrigley would bite at the bars of the crate, dig on the floor and walls, pant in panic until he was soaked with drool and, on rare occasions, would pee all over the inside of the kennel just to get us to take him out and clean him up. Wrigley was clearly not having a great time with how we were approaching crate training, and this made us incredibly sad. From the information we compiled doing research online, crate training was supposed to be about making your dog comfortable slowly over multiple training sessions - after three months of attempts to slowly introduce the crate as a home, we weren't seeing any improvements from Wrigley. At that point, we decided that we'd need some extra help... and we ended up picking Crawford Canine Connection. We'd read their positive reviews and were immediately interested in their in-home training, so we started with that. Mary and Kimberlee visited us in Seattle from their main office in Everett. Immediately, we caught on to how professional and dedicated both of them were - for about two hours, they had us run tests where my partner and I left our apartment together, separately, loudly, and quietly to gauge how Wrigley reacted. Throughout the meeting, they took notes and discussed potential training regiments - afterwards, they sent us those notes and began advising us on how to address the behavior that they were able to observe in the environment where it would actually occur (our apartment). Having them actually be there was super helpful and made us feel like the training was tailored just for us! Instead of quickly jumping to crate training, we instead started with separation training in an x-pen (standing pen). We also started running basic mat training exercises - both of these were daily activities for my partner and I, but improvements started almost immediately for Wrigley. Within a few weeks, we were already starting to get him comfortable in his standing pen. Mary followed up with us in a check-in meeting and gave us further instructions based on the status update we gave her then. From there, we started recording Wrigley's progress using in-apartment webcams and sending that to Mary via email. She was incredibly helpful and would give minute by minute breakdowns of the videos we sent her. It took time, but in mid-January of this year, we started leaving Wrigley outside of his x-pen in our apartment. We're now up to a consistent two hours where we can just leave him in our apartment - most of the time, he just sleeps on the floor or on our couch! Comparing that to the seconds we'd be able to leave him in his crate before he started panicking, it's like we have a completely different dog. Mary and the rest of the team at Crawford Canine Connection are amazing and, if your dog is anything like ours, are well-prepped to completely change your dog's level of comfort alone for the better! read more

We will always be grateful to Crawford Canine Connection for their work with us and Dash and we could not be more thrilled with the results. They transformed our relationship with our wonderful loving 4-year-old dachshund who came to us when he was two. We were so happy to be able to work directly with our two trainers on a one to one basis, as opposed to a class with other animals. We first came to Crawford Connection because of our concern for safety of our pet. Mary was recommended to us by our veterinary clinic following a dangerous incident, when one day Dash slipped his leash on a walk in the neighborhood and ran ahead, stopping at the end of the block to challenge a German Shepard with aggressive barking. Although he really just wanted to play, no one else realized it. While my wife and I raced after him, the shepherd's owner struggled to hold onto her as Dash ran around them in circles. By the time we finally were able to get ahold of Dash's leash, we had both fallen down and suffered injuries including a broken finger. We knew we had to act. Mary, the owner of Crawford Connection, and Libby succeeded in transforming our relationship and taught our pet the skills he needed to adapt to our human world, while at the same time, their positive training philosophy accomplished the changes without changing our dog's joyful, loving personality. Throughout the training process, Mary gave us the freedom to decide how much to work on certain aspects. She knows how to pace learning and decide when we were able to move on to more challenging tasks, like working outside.. From the beginning, Mary and Libby were able to develop strong, positive rapport with our pet. Dash was thrilled to see his trainers every session! Working together in a team of two trainers was a real plus that allowed for more effective training and they developed a plan for Dash tailored to address many difficult areas, including proper greeting of visitors, coming to us on command, how to re-center our pet's focus on us instead of other stimuli, how to reduce unwanted barking, and how to "Leave it". As Dash began to reliably learn these skills, training moved outdoors and into the neighborhood, where we learned how to safely and enjoyably navigate walks with all the many distractions, instead of worrying about how to avoid confrontations and undesirable behavior. We loved Mary's excellent system of documenting every visit in detail with homework before the next session. At the end of our training, she gave us with a final written report summarizing our work with Dash and highlighting areas for continued training. She also wrote a report to our veterinarian to document Dash's training experience. read more

I have a Minpin rescue who has lots of abandonment issues and training needs that we needed to work on. I found Crawford Canine via my vet and Mary sounded like a good fit for me and for my little guy. Mary and Lizzy were so great with Kennedy. They build trust and a connection with him (and me) right away. He always enjoyed his session with them and with each session his confidence (and mine) grew and grew. Mary and Lizzy knowledge and ability to work with Kennedy was clear from the first session. We now have some really good tools to use when Kennedy gets scared on his walks when he encounter other dogs or human. He is on his way! They have a wonderful gentle training approach. I would highly recommend! read more

It was an absolute pleasure to work with Mary from Crawford Canine Connections. She helped us form a wonderful bond with our adopted stray dog, Frankie. Mary helped us solve Frankie's main issues which were separation anxiety and fearfulness to the extent that she wouldn't go on walks. Mary developed a specialized training regimen that focused on Frankie's specific temperament, personality, and motivations. We learned so much about Frankie - we learned to read her body language and how to communicate with her so much better. And Frankie just loved Mary. After our initial consultation Mary developed a personalized training plan for Frankie. At the end of the training we had accomplished all we had hoped for and so much more. We miss seeing Mary and I know Frankie does, too! You can tell she hopes it's Mary every time the doorbell rings. What a fantastic experience. Our relationship with Frankie improved immensely and she is so much more confident and content. Mary is exceptional and a joy to work with. We highly recommend Crawford Canine Connection! read more

We own a very energetic Goldendoodle who was in great need of training. I found Crawford Canine online and it seemed like a good fit for our puppy. Mary and Kimberlee couldn't have been better! They were amazing with our dog Wally. He now is able to go on walks nicely (without pulling), can greet guests politely (without jumping and being crazy), and learned many other great tools. Wally loved every training session and would look for Mary and Kimberlee out the window each time. They are wonderful people with a gentle and knowledgeable approach to training. I would highly recommend! read more

If you are looking for training, knowledge and understanding canine behavior Crawford Canine Connection is the best out there. I have three dogs that came from a very sad beginning and needed training in many different aspects. Mary and Kimberlee are SO detailed and took notes on each pet. A plan was set for each dog. Medical issues were taken into consideration as well. We did the training in my home where all the dogs felt at ease. All three dogs fell madly in love with Mary and Kimberlee. They just have a way with dogs that is a gift. My Korean Mastiff has come so far with the gentle training I'm over joyed. Not only have the dogs learned from Crawford Connection; I have as well. A ten star review is what I would give if possible. Thank you! read more

Crawford Canine Connection was just what our family and our dog, Lucy, needed. Mary's understanding of dog behavior, brain science and her thorough assessment Lucy set us all up for success. Mary spent lots of time getting to know Lucy, her history (that we know about) and how that potentially influenced some of the behaviors we were trying to correct. Mary's positive reinforcement and systematic training was just what our gentle but reactive dog needed. Lucy has more confidence in herself, and more importantly, in us. She looks to us for cues, reinforcement and corrections and we're all less anxious as a result of the training. Walks are relaxing again! Would highly recommend CCC and Mary for any dog training or behavior corrections needed. Thanks, Mary! read more

Crawford Canine Connection excels in designing a training program specific to your dog's (and owner's) needs. Their initial evaluation & proposed training program was thorough, integrating our requests and their recommendations to truly change our dog's world for the better. Every training session was designed for positive reinforcement training only. Our dog Jax was already dealing with fear and anxiety-based issues, the last thing we wanted was a rigid training program. Throughout the training program, Kimberlee & Mary adjusted their training methods to maintain a stress-free experience for our dog with lasting results. Jax was adopted into our home when he was 4 years old. We knew little of his history except that this would be at least his 3rd new home in 4 years. He is now 5 1/2 years old and a happy boy living in his forever home, Crawford Canine Connection was a big part of making that a reality for Jax and our family. After adopting Jax, we spent the first 8 months attempting to sort out his behaviors on our own including evaluations from other dog trainers. We were never able to achieve lasting results until engaging the services of Kimberlee & Mary. Their commitment, compassion, and professionalism are unmatched. read more

Crawford Canine Connection did a wonderful job working with us and our dog Wrigley. We adopted Wrigley from a shelter and he has a lot of anxiety. Mary helped us work with Wrigley to manage the troublesome behaviors. Wrigley adored Mary (and so did us humans). Mary clearly has a passion for this work. read more