We started working with Viki when our dog, Nori, a high-energy Pug, Chihuahua, Poodle, Shih Tzu,…read moreand Terrier mix, was two years old. At the time, Nori completely ruled the house. She jumped on everyone, constantly pulled on her leash, struggled with severe separation anxiety, and was quite reactive toward our senior dog. When we welcomed our daughter, we knew it was officially time to seek professional help. Reaching out to Viki was the best decision we could have made. From day one, she was amazing to work with, immensely knowledgeable, kind, honest, and direct. Under Viki's guidance, Nori has made incredible progress in every single area. While she's still young and has her sassy moments, Nori is now fully crate trained, has excellent food manners, walks beautifully on a heel, and is overall so much more obedient. Viki uses positive reinforcement, and Nori absolutely adores Viki. Her tail starts wagging the second Viki walks through the door! Beyond the training sessions, Viki is a wealth of knowledge on canine health, great products, and she has helped us truly understand how Nori sees the world. She is always punctual, incredibly caring, and genuinely cares about Nori's well-being. It is so clear that she truly loves what she does and deeply cares for the dogs she works with. I cannot recommend Viki highly enough. She has made life with our pup so much easier and infinitely more enjoyable!

We originally brought Koda to Viki for his leash reactivity and pulling, with the goal of…read moreeventually being able to confidently take him off-leash at the beach. Viki's knowledge, patience, and incredible attention to detail have made such a difference. We've learned SO much throughout Koda's training, and we now feel so much more confident and have such a huge sense of relief when taking him out in public around lots of dogs and people, and even letting him enjoy the beach off-leash. Thank you, Viki, for everything you've taught us and for helping Koda become the confident pup we knew he could be!

Stacey is amazing! I would highly recommend her for all of your dog training needs. We've been…read moreworking with Stacey for the past 5 weeks on basic obedience training (sit, down, stay, loose leash walking, toy play, etc.) for our 8-month old German Shepherd / Belgian Malinois / Husky mix. Before meeting Stacey, I was stitching together lessons I found online and in books and was always unsure if I was training the behavior correctly. What I found enormously helpful was having Stacey critique my technique in real-time when training my dog, which is something you simply can't get from watching Youtube videos. She really helped me understand some of the nuances around positive, rewards-based training that I was missing such as timing, how to deliver the reward, how to avoid simply luring your dog, and most importantly, the power of rewarding your dog when they offer default good behavior. Our dog improved by leaps and bounds over the 5 weeks we worked together. I definitely feel much more confident training my dog after my sessions with Stacey. For those concerned about COVID, all of our sessions were outdoors (either in a driveway or public park) with everyone wearing masks the entire time.

Writing reviews for dog training is hard, because I strongly believe it is very subjective to the…read morepersonality of the owner, the dog and the trainer. Everyone has to be comfortable with one another and on the same page to work well together, if it's not right, it's not right. Stacey was very thorough in her session with me, but I made the decision after much thought to not pursue working with her further. There were a few reasons for this decision, not all having to do with her specifically and more for the best interest of my dog. I don't think she'd disagree with my choice either, as one of her recommendations was to rehome my dog (which I did a month after our session). My dog is rescue, about 4 years old and has a combination of leash reactivity (reactive rover), human aggression and separation anxiety. The newest addition to his laundry list of behavioral issues was separation anxiety, my dog went from having only having leash reactivity to then human aggression at around age 1 to then separation anxiety this past year. I could manage the first 2 with avoidance, distraction and vigilance, but the final addition of separation anxiety that developed in the last 9 months was the last straw. I could not handle my dog peeing in the house and digging at the door because of his utter despair that he "lost his human" every time I left him home alone. I called Stacey at the recommendation from another local trainer/walker who endorsed her for handling separation anxiety. And I would strongly agree, Stacey is amazing at working with owners and dogs with separation anxiety. She has had 2-3 dogs of her own who were much more difficult cases of separation anxiety than my own dog's. She put in place a very logical, thorough plan to help navigate through and help my dog adjust to a difficult big city environment as well as my chaotic work/life schedule. It is exactly what he needed, also, I knew that. I learned, however, that what needed to be done/changed quite frankly was outside of my capability - whether it was time, money, patience or changes to my own life that needed to be made to help him adapt, I couldn't afford and wasn't willing to make the sacrifice. That is not on Stacey - it's was really what my dog needed, big more intensive medication therapy or a new home away from the city. However, another important reason for not working with Stacey, was my gut feeling that her firm tone/manner may not lend well to a dog that also happens to have reactivity/human aggression in the mix. She is 100% about positive reinforcement, the same methodology I use with my pet, but as soon as she walked in the door the energy, body language and way of talking was off for me. What had mostly surprised me was that while being positive reinforcement in approach, she showed up to our house without treats. Walking in as a complete stranger, without treats or a ball to distract, it tends to be a nightmare for my dog. No guest comes over without the arsenal ready. While I had those items ready and at disposal for her, I've found it takes the trainer likewise employing treat exercises and distractions in conjunction to ease the introduction process. That never happened and I was so shocked by it that I faltered in my execution as well. Her reaction was to immediately launch into a dialogue about preventing him from going out the door (which considering a bunch of variables that happened all at once quickly before the door was opened, I wasn't able to grab him in time), then asking me a bunch of questions about when he would settle down or what we could do to keep him locked up and away, which distracted my focus on managing him as well as moved away from our set routine of managing his discomfort with a new guest. I had a very hard time relating to her style and because of my discomfort my dog couldn't relax around her either. I had to put him on a leash, which being a leash reactive dog and rarely tethered up in his own home only made matters more uncomfortable for him. Also, one of the reasons things got off to a rocky start was that she was difficult to calendar an appointment with (only one window given for 3 weeks time frame that I had to move my work schedule around to accommodate) as well as the fact that she was 20 minutes late to our appointment and didn't call. Her heads up instead sent over email had gone to spam, so by the time I was aware of her delay I was already frustrated. I did tell her that I didn't feel comfortable with how the meeting started and had some concerns about her style being a fit for us, before we parted ways. She did apologize. In all, many variables set me on edge, not all of which were on Stacey, but combined diminished our ability to work together. I think Stacey and I found a groove in the end, found a flow to our conversation, but my dog wasn't having it. Her final assessment follow-up was spot-on, which at least showed to me that she knows her craft. I just couldn't go forward

Polina is truly a dog whisperer. She helped us turn our spirited Golden Doodle puppy into a well…read morebehaved little lady! We have done lots of dog training in the past, but she opened our eyes to new ways of understanding our new puppy. She trained us just as much as the dog, which is probably even more important in the long run. We have done Zoom Room and have worked with and interviewed several other trainers -- Polina is in a whole other league. If you need training help, there's no better option out there.

We were referred to Polina by someone who spoke very highly of her and her thoughtful, methodical…read moreapproach to dog training. Our 10-month-old maltipoo, Sarah, had her first session at our home where Polina took the time to understand our setup and answer all our questions about how to get started. Polina is extremely patient, and it's clear she truly loves what she does. After just a few sessions, we noticed real progress in Sarah's obedience training. We also appreciated the follow-up Zoom sessions, which were convenient and surprisingly effective for both Q&A and virtual training. We plan to continue working with Polina as Sarah learns more commands and as we gain a better understanding of her behavior. We've already recommended Polina to friends and would highly recommend her to anyone looking for a dedicated and effective dog trainer. Thank you Polina!!!

So many amazing things I can say about Joey. First, super…read moreresponsive, kind, and helpful. He was available to come by on Mother's Day afternoon because he felt my desperation with our new rescue not being very kind to my smaller children. He was quick to suggest a time to swing by, his consult was fair, thorough and quite frankly generous! He spent enough time with us and our pup to make some recommendations. Because he is senior our options are a bit more limited with his conditions. Joey is a community treasure did all fur loving families in the peninsula. Don't waste a second reaching out and have your pup be seems by a true natural professional! Thank you for being awesome and making my Mother's Day involve my fur baby too! ;) should we bring a other bundle of love into our home, know you'll be the first I'd call for guidance for a good fit!

Amazing person who has a lot of patience. Really helped me out with all my dog problems and…read morehonestly really saw change. He also worked hard for hours on end which i really appreciated a lot of other trainers have a set time but he went above and beyond.

I cannot recommend Jeff enough. We are completely pet-inexperienced and just got a puppy. After a…read moreweek or so of combing through YouTube videos and articles, trying to make sense of the sometimes conflicting advice, we decided to find a trainer. I reached out to many, but Jeff stood out. He appeared to be highly experienced and seemed to genuinely want to help (rather that some others that felt a bit like money grabs). We had a phone call with Jeff and briefly discussed our concerns. Just from the conversation, we were able to take some of his quick advice into action and felt a noticeable amount of stress off our shoulders. We knew right away that Jeff was the trainer for us, and asked him to come for an in-home visit. What a game-changer the visit was. Jeff is very friendly and professional, and arrived well-prepared with documented materials for us to keep. He walked us through the major points of puppy training, focusing on the parts that he knew we were struggling with. It was a completely customized experience. He included my 6 and 7 year old daughters in the training as well. He taught us not by just SHOWING us, but by having US do the exercises with our puppy, so WE felt comfortable. We covered a ton of material, and our entire family is adjusting our new and improved dog training methods. After our visit, Jeff emailed us a follow up (like a doctor's after visit report) with reminders and recommendations as well as some additional resources that would help. Our family has already started putting his advice into practice, and we feel much more confident as pet owners now. We are so grateful that Jeff has shared his expertise with our family. He will be our go-to trainer for all future training help we may need as our pup grows up.

4.5 stars We messaged Jeff and were able to get an…read moreappointment a week out. Our newly adopted dog was pulling and misbehaving and driving us CRAZY! Jeff calmed us down and reinforced that we got a good pup on our hands. He even supervised our very first dog park visit which we were VERY glad he was there for. The training part of the training session was a bit lacking. He was training US more than the pup. That is totally understandable, but I would have liked more dog training too?

Stella helped me with my dog Poppy when I was having a lot of issues with her reactivity. From…read moresession 1 and following her advice I started to see a huge difference with Poppy's calmness. By session 6 I could actually take her out and walk with her without her tugging on the leash. She got better at recall as well as listening to commands off leash in enclosed areas. While I couldn't finish my training with her due to me moving to the east coast, I truly appreciate her for how great she was at helping me make small changes that significantly impacted Poppy's calmness, patience and reactivity. I will continue to reinforce her training tips with Poppy to help her learn better. Bonus: Stella also provides tips with how certain products would work better for my dog and they actually did. Just introducing a new treat on our walks expedited her progress on leash pulling on our walks. Mega Bonus: she had a notion diary on all our training tips and videos for the session as well as homework. It helped me keep track of Poppy's progress and enforce the training at home easily. That was the most helpful for me.

Great time volunteering with SFSPCA and helping to socialize and train shelter dogs so they can…read morefind their forever home soon

There is no way I'd ever even consider another trainer. No way after today,…read more I have a new pup. He is having a few minor issues I wanted to talk to a professional about. Firstly, I called her. The amount of advice she gave me simply as a concerned pup parent was probably worth a few hundred bucks. Honestly. She shared with me because she was concerned. This is the mark of someone who really loves what she does, and shows dogs as her priority, not money. She came over, took care of my concerns, stayed for 30 minutes longer than the consultation I was paying for because I had concerns, and she never once said a word about the time, the money, nothing. Again, she listened because she felt she should. She is goddamn amazing, thorough, and professional. A+. Use this trainer.

I called Lisa just after adopting my dog, and within the first couple of days of owning him, I came…read morehome to angry notes from my neighbor about his barking. As a five year old shelter dog, he had learned to become very scared when he was left alone and as a result started barking and did not stop until I came home. I tried to smooth things over with the neighbor to no avail, and in desperation called Lisa after reading her yelp reviews. She called me back immediately, and ever since then has been incredibly supportive and provided wonderful ideas, professional suggestions that I would not have thought about. Her commitment to dogs is clear, and she has always been available via email or phone. She was excellent with my dog who is sometimes shy or fearful and she made him feel at ease. More than positive reinforcement for dogs, Lisa is all about positive reinforcement for people. Often dog owners are blinded by their love for their dogs, and when confronted with a difficult situation of seperation anxiety in a pet, it becomes hard to think rationally if dealing w/ non-dog lovers... Lisa always provided the support and honesty needed for the training I've been working on w/ my dog, and I'm happy to report that he's doing MUCH better now! Thanks Lisa!!

Too expensive. Currently my dog is at top dog they take her from 9am to 1:30 pm pick up and…read moredelivery. They charge 840 dollars a month for 5 days a week bringing her to Montara. This establishment is 350 dollars a week for a 1 hr walk, or 1400 dollars a month.

Prateek gets dogs! He totally understands them - couldn't be happier...you don't need to look…read moreelsewhere.