Consider carefully before leaving your K9 companion for weeks with anyone. Research will expose any…read moreissues that a business might have. The ChamberofCommerce.com is very informative.
Reputable dog trainers prefer training owners vs board and train their dog.
Explained that the dog was a rescue from a local animal shelter & the pet of a handicapped person. The owner wasn't able to manage him due to mobility & stability issues. This was a 3 yr Doberman; which is considered one of the top 5 intelligent breeds. The owner had been kenneling the dog outside for prior 2 months.
The dog's worse behavior was jumping on people.
Chose the 3 week option. The dog only needed to be trained for 5 commands; 1)Sit, 2) Down, 3) Stay, 4)Come, & 5)Heel. The dog knew sit but wouldn't maintain a sit without a reward & for more than a few seconds. The folder I was given stated 10+ commands.
Trainer doesn't train the stay command alone. If you watch the posted training videos, trainer will use "stay" with sit & down. You don't get a stay alone, which can be sitting, standing, lying down per the dog's choice. The trainer claims to train the command "come" on a leash, which is useless. The trainer spends a lot of time posting Facebook material on non-related training.
Per videos she doesn't train a behavior before adding a verbal. Dogs are visual creatures that, through domestication, evolved to prioritize non-verbal cues--posture, gaze, and gestures--over verbal commands. Hand signals work better than verbal. Verbals can be added after the behavior is understood.
The best training duration time is a max of 5 minutes or less per session & multiple times a day. The facility is small & doesn't expose dogs to real world scenarios.
The dog ended up staying a total of 7 weeks with added costs. He wouldn't complete any command with the trainer, her husband, or myself at the time of graduation. I visited the dog weekly. Owner visited twice.
Duration of a command was never more than a 10 - 15 seconds max in posted videos, if the dog would actually respond to a command. The dog completed a sit and down in the last video posted & required a reward. Trainer was some male person who never turned their back on the dog.
Trainer/owner called the day after failed graduation & stated the dog had to be removed from the facility for aggression towards a staff member, who was a minor left with the dog. The trainer markets themselves as a behavior modification professional. The trainer didn't exclusively train the dog. She told the Consumer Protection Agency with the KY AGs office that she promised myself that she would personally train the dog. Later, in court, she would blame the dog, or myself for the lack of expected training.
The owner picked the dog up the day after the failed graduation. The trainer/owner handed the dog's owner an envelope. More than a week later I opened the envelope to find a check for $850, which wasn't even the last full payment. The check was canceled, per the bank, just a few weeks later.
Eventually had to take the center to small claims court to get $917.00 & some odd change after paying a total of $2438 although the dog was never fully trained as the owner & the website guaranteed. The trainer's response was that they could come to the home & claimed in court that the dog was fully trained. There would have been no need for further training outside of the 7 weeks, if a dog were fully trained. I have trained 6 dogs in the last 2 years.
When I read the website's faqs it stated "Totally" trained & guarantees that the dog would do all the training agreed upon when returned.
During 2 yrs of slowly working through the remediation process, I filed a complaint with the BBB of Kentucky, the Consumer Protection Agency with the KY Attorney General's office, consulted 2 different lawyers, & finally filed a small claims after everyone urged me to do so.
The complaint to the BBB is still posted and viewable to the public.
