My experience with Bob echoes those of other reviewers who found his training methods excessively…read moreforceful, compulsion-focused, and unresponsive to the signals my dog was sending. Not only did I find his training style personally objectionable, it set my dog's forward progress back by desensitizing him to low-force corrections (which he has always been quite responsive to) and triggering several instances of severe dog reaction while Bob was working with us.
I initially got in touch with Bob to help with my 60 lb pit bull's reactivity problem. I have invested many hours and dollars training him, and he is well-behaved and obedient with minor exceptions - dogs and door knocks being the two I wanted Bob's help with. When I called Bob, he made several assumptions about my training and interactions with my dog, almost all of which were inaccurate. He spoke over me and did not show interest in what I've done so far, choosing instead to point to mistakes he thought I was making, only for me to say "no, I've been training my dog for years, we don't do that."
When he arrived, as planned, he knocked on my door, and my dog started barking. I crated my dog, opened the door for Bob, and then let my dog out of the crate when he stopped barking. My dog greeted Bob curiously, and then slowly got more excited, finally jumping on Bob. Bob's reaction was (no exaggeration!) to karate chop my dog in the neck, to which my dog immediately began reacting, growling and barking at Bob. This took my dog from curious and cautious to downright protective. Bob then told me that I had to correct my dog into stopping his reaction. I got his attention and he eventually calmed down. He then took about 10 minutes to readjust and meet Bob calmly again. While I don't want my dog jumping on visitors (and he almost never does), I am confident there are methods less forceful than a karate chop to make the change. To be clear, *Bob is the only visitor my dog has ever reacted this way with.* It's clear to me that Bob triggered the reaction and it seems he wanted credit for putting out the fire that he started.
Following this, we went out for the planned walk. We went in the direction of dogs, and Bob instructed me to not allow mine to look at other dogs. When we came across a German Shepherd, I told my dog "Leave it," which he ignored. We were about 50 feet away, and Bob asked if he could take the leash, which I allowed. He loudly told my dog "Leave it!", which my dog, again, ignored. Bob then issued such a forceful correction on the prong collar that the bag holder attached to the leash broke apart. This, predictably, caused my dog to go from uncomfortable and suspicious of the other dog, to a full-blown fight-or-flight reaction (growling, barking, and pulling). Bob issued several more high-force corrections on the prong and then kicked my dog twice. Only when the German Shepherd went away did my dog stop reacting.
After this, Bob told me that the "solution is an e-collar." To be clear, I have found success with balanced training methods, including corrections on a prong collar. I am not opposed to e-collars, BUT Bob then suggested that the only way to get my dog to stop reacting was to issue a shock so strong "it would get all 4 of [my dog's] feet off the ground." I have no interest in using a tool solely to inflict pain on my dog.
We did this exercise with a couple more dogs, and each time, the heavy corrections triggered the initial reaction and failed to get him to stop once he was going.
Bob's style is almost purely compulsion-based, and while this may elicit the desired changes in some dogs, it is rooted in a theory of training that hasn't been the norm for literal decades. It causes unnecessary pain and stress to the dog, and, crucially, is less effective than many other training styles.
Bob also made several off-hand comments while we were together, including that he flipped a driver off while he was walking into my building (???) and that the way to get a dog to stop barking in its crate is to bang the top of the crate with a skillet and yell at the dog. I found his behavior strange and unprofessional.
I ended up cutting our 2 hour session short and paying Bob for 1 hour of his time at his hourly rate of $195/hr.
