Hands down, Christi is the best dog walker in the East Bay. She is a first a dog lover, who is…read moreconscientious, organized, and thoughtful. Her pack walks exhaust the dogs while being safe and exciting for them. Her dog sitting sets my mind at ease as she knows dogs, her level head and knowledge ensure peace of mind while we are away.

this is also a long overdue review, I have used BARK AROUND THE BLOCK for many years. and…read more her staff are excellent. my dog; Rommel, a French bulldog he absolutely loves walking with her. She socializes the dogs with the group walks offered in the afternoons or morning walk. during the ongoing months The scheduling and communication is excellent ! My dog has improved greatly in all aspects of his socialization as well as his obedienc. Believe it or not for his breed he is so chill now. He loves his group walks! The trails are varied which is fabulous and keeps it interesting for the dogs. I have been extremely pleased with the excellent level of service provided by Bark Around the Block She is deserving of the Best Dog Walker of Alameda for the consecutive years, it has been awarded to her Company!

All the walkers that work for Woofwalks are amazing. My dog Riley LOVES going on his pack hikes!read more

Lars has passed away, but I still feel grateful to WoofWalks (and especially Jerrod) for teaching…read moreLars such nice manners and socialization skills when I first got him. I continue to sing their praises and to recommend WW to neighbors and friends!!

If you're looking for a dog walker in Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, etc ... LOOK NO FURTHER!!!…read moreThis is the last review you need to read because Michelle is AMAZING and I'm positive we wouldn't have made it through the first six months of life with our 60 lb. rescue pitbull without her! As I'm sure you've discovered, the majority of dog walkers in the East Bay offer off-leash, group walks through the spectacular scenery of luscious Tilden blah blah awesome, great, I'm sure they're lovely. But what if my dog doesn't like other dogs!?! And needs to be walked on-leash, on her own!?! I had no idea finding someone to fit that criteria would be so difficult and we were at wits end when I came across Oaktown Dog. Thank GOODNESS. Not only does Michelle offer solo walks for super reasonable prices, she's also flexible on days/times of the week (some weeks she walks our girl twice, others she walks her every day) and most importantly she truly cares about our pup. When she first started walking our pittie, she asked to come to a session with our trainer so she could reenforce what we were teaching our girl on their walks! Didn't ask to be paid, just showed up! When it's hot out, she takes our girl to a secret beach so she can play off-leash in the ocean without having to worry about other dogs. When it's cool, she has secret fetch spots. And after COVID hit and we hadn't seen her in 6 weeks, our girl FLIPPED OUT WITH EXCITEMENT the first time Michelle showed up to walk her again. So seriously, stop reading reviews. Get in touch with Michelle. You and your dog(s) will LOVE her. Oh, and she does house-sitting too. Pretty sure our dog was sad when we got back because that meant Michelle was leaving.

It's such a relief to have found a walker who is dependable and genuinely affectionate with our…read moredog. Even though we aren't going into the office anymore due to COVID, it's been a big help having Oaktown Dog come by twice a week on days when we have lots of meetings.

In Their Element has been fantastic for our dog. They are reliable, communicative, and…read moreaccommodating. Our walker Kamala is kind and our pup clear enjoys his hikes with her and the pack.

Really great service provider! Very communicative, flexible, reliable, reasonable, and, most…read moreimportantly, so wonderful to our goofy pooch! Highly recommend!

This review has been a long time coming. We've wanted to work with Courtney since 2019. Our dog has…read moreanxiety & noise sensitivity issues and we wanted to help her build confidence. I emailed Courtney back in October for a consultation. They responded quickly with dates and times, I booked a consultation in 11/8/2019. When it came time to our appointment, we had to be rescheduled multiple times due to whatever issue Courtney had. We didn't think much at the time, but this should've been a HUGE red flag. We ended up seeing her on 11/16/2019. Following that, we paid $310 for 4 packs of 30 min lessons on 12/16/2019. We scheduled 4 lessons around the end of January to February. We had to reschedule our lessons due to their dog passing away and health reason (totally unfortunate situation). However, in February, they said they would refund our money once Courtney recovered. We waited until March before we contacted them due to her health reason. Courtney responded via text message once on 03/6/2020 and they responded once through email on 04/5/2020 about how refunds are being worked on. They never responded again. We've emailed & texted multiple times. I really didn't want to write this bad review about a small business, but it's really unfair to take our money, not provide sessions, tell us they'll refund us, and then disappear when it comes time for refunds. All we wanted was for our dog is build confidence and now we're left with nothing. We have been waiting since February 2020 for our refund and it is currently August 2020. I have slowly come to terms that they scammed us, but I want to prevent this situation from happening to someone else. I would give Courtney 0 stars if I could. Please take your business elsewhere, there are other trainers who are more reliable all over the bay area. Don't make the same mistake we did. I attached pictures following the timeline of this whole situation.

We first reached out to Courtney in 2017 for help getting our senior chihuahua more on track with…read morehousebreaking. Since then, Courtney has remained a consistent source of support in working with this highstrung but loving little guy, and most recently walked us through a pretty miraculous introduction between him and our newborn baby. Books the chihuahua is terrified of children and had barked and lunged at babies in the past, and I was so worried about bringing our daughter home to meet him and keeping them both safe and happy. Courtney coached us on how to prepare Books for having a baby in our pack, and gave us insight into how he might be feeling and thoughts he might have. When introduction day came, Courtney was there and walked us through the entire interaction. Books had some behaviors that worried me, but Courtney explained them and assured me they were normal. Before we knew it, he was licking baby's ears and feet! Thanks to that positive first encounter, he has accepted her as a pack member and wants to be near her all the time. He's still having anxiety about the change, and Courtney has been generous about texting with us and offering solutions that have worked (thundershirt and a lil' CBD tincture). I should also mention that Books was terrified of Courtney at first (as he is with most new people), and after training with her a few times, she became one of his favorite people and now he gets excited if he even sees her car in the neighborhood! Courtney was also very generous in advising a friend and I about a stray dog we rescued from a cemetery. The dog was terrified, and Courtney offered a lot of pro bono advice about separation anxiety and helping him relax, and eventually did a formal session with his foster mom. Courtney's help got him to relax enough to stay in a not-very-dog-friendly building until he was adopted. Thank you Courtney and Devoted Dog Training for helping our family be happy together!

We love Red Rover. They are super flexible and we can generally add days last minute which helps…read morewith our work travel schedule. Our dog goes with them for the social time and always comes home happy and exhausted. On rainy or muddy days he's returned clean and toweled. He's always super happy to hear them at the door. Highly recommend!

My precious muppet baby was SUCH a timid Quarantine pup before starting her pack walks with Red…read moreRover. She jumped at cars, she jumped at trucks, she would never engage assertively with any dog bigger than her, and cars weren't her jam. Well! No longer. Every time we go outside she jumps into the copilot seat ready to take on an adventure. Yesterday she approached a large German Shepherd at the dog park without any trepidation and appropriately picked up on social cues with the Shepherd's twin titan came over to check the scene out as well. She walks much better (definitely not perfect!) on leash than before which helps my anxiety and her safety. Overall l, Red Rover has been an important and necessary investment in her socialization in these pandemic bubble times. Cant say enough positive things about Del the walker and Jeremy. Thanks!!

Jennifer is a masterful dog trainer. Two months ago, we picked up a 7-week old Golden-doodle, Max…read more We'd had dogs before. But it was a long time since we had a puppy. We knew that Jennifer was working with friends of ours and their dog, and they were very happy with her style and results. Knowing how busy Jennifer is, we asked them to find out if she'd make time for our new puppy. We are so glad she said yes! She is great! She trains the dog and the owner at the same time, with humor and discipline. There are two things you need to appreciate about Jennifer. First, she is a no-nonsense trainer. She loves dogs and takes the training seriously. You should be ready to do the same. The second is that she is a real expert in the science of training dogs. It's something special to watch how she treats the dogs with such a reach knowledge and understanding of what they need and when. Finally, Jennifer makes the training fun for the whole family. Our son has special needs, and it is wonderful to watch how Jennifer works with him and helps him learn how to train our dog. It is so fun to watch them together. She makes us all laugh. There isn't a better trainer around!

Jennifer has been a significant part of our dog's training for more than a year, ever since he was…read morea puppy. She understands dogs and getting the behaviors we want. She showed us how to motivate and train Leo and turn around any problem behaviors. On our first big trip out of town, she called us to see how things were going and helped us through some challenges. Recently, I wanted to do even more with Leo. Jennifer has been working with me to train Leo for AKC Rally, where he recently titled at the novice level and we're moving on! She has helped to make the person/dog relationship a pleasure. What more can you ask. Jennifer is GREAT. Knowledgeable, fun, passionate about dogs and their owners. She's also responsive, reliable and caring. She wants the best for our dog and us.

Jason has walked my large and spirited dog for almost 5 years now and is incredible all around! He…read moreconsistently arrives with his van of happy panting pups to pick up and drop off my boy. He communicates promptly when I have questions or for the rare schedule changes that come up during the year. I can see my dog's joy when he goes off on his adventure. Long after he gets back, my pup is relaxing and resting from the walk. Jason always has a great attitude - rain or shine - and gives my dog lots of love. We are so lucky and grateful to have him in our pup's life!

We will never forgive Canine Boardwalk for the heartbreaking death of our beloved German Shepherd…read moremix, Sadie. We left Sadie under Jason's care on March 17, 2016. About 24 hours later, she was missing. After 4 days of frantic searching, the mobilization of many friends and family, and multiple pleas for assistance from Jason, our dear dog, Sadie, was found in the middle of I-80 by a stranger who thought her body might match the description on one of our fliers. Her body was flattened and mutilated beyond recognition from being run over by so many cars. Canine Boardwalk let her run collarless, without dog tags, and off-leash at Pt. Isabel. Under no circumstances would we have allowed Sadie to be let off leash at the Pt. Isabel dog park, which is full of foxtails (grass seeds that can be lethal to dogs), unfenced, and located near two major freeways. Only we could confirm Sadie's identity, and the experience of viewing her body will haunt us for the rest of our lives. We were not able to give her a proper burial or even remove her body from the highway. Now, I understand that people make mistakes. Dogs, even ones as docile and loving as Sadie was, are still animals and can be unpredictable around strangers. This is especially true of special-needs dogs like Sadie, who suffered from occasional seizures. Sadie's death, as gut-wrenching as it has been, could have been just a tragic experience. But it was more than tragic; this entire experience has been deeply traumatic because Jason and the staff of Canine Boardwalk handled the situation in the most callous, uncaring ways imaginable. From the moment they misrepresented themselves about who'd be walking Sadie and where they'd take her to their reluctance in helping us search for Sadie to the excruciatingly slow reimbursement process to get our money back for our missing dog expenses (we had to email them repeatedly for this), Canine Boardwalk made a tragic experience a deeply traumatic one. Because Canine Boardwalk avoided taking responsibility for their actions our pain has been magnified to agonizing levels. As you can see from the date of this post, Sadie's death was just a few months ago, and the way we lost her has made the mourning process unspeakably difficult. Without Canine Boardwalk's negligence and Jason's unprofessionalism, Sadie would be alive today. Their business practices are unsafe, and we believe the way they run their business endangers dogs. If Canine Boardwalk wants to stay in business, then they need to develop clear policies and procedures to ensure that tragedies like this do not happen again. We want to make sure that other dog owners do not experience the same kind of heartbreak and trauma that we did. Please think very, very carefully before you give them your business. There are other dog walking businesses run by compassionate, responsible people who would probably appreciate your support just as much as Canine Boardwalk would, and these other businesses would probably provide care with better professionalism and more respect. Please consider supporting them instead. After this experience, I wish I could give Canine Boardwalk a no star rating. Sadie, we love you so much and miss you every day, every hour. May you be romping happily with all the other dogs way out there over the rainbow bridge. RIP.