My wife and I invested in the 2-week board and train for our 9 month old (at the time) pitbull mix (mutt) puppy, Scout. We got her at 7 months and wanted to send her to Taurus right away, but wanted to get her fixed before that. And, before she was fixed, we had to clear up some skin issues that surfaced while she was living on her own as a stray. Before Taurus, we had attempted to train her some at home, but she was so incredibly high energy that we could not get her to pay attention to us, even with treats. She did not listen to basic commands (like "off" for getting her paws off the counter, or "sit" when she was too excited), even after lots of repetition. Several trips to the vet nearly left me in tears because Scout would whine and bark and want to play with other dogs. The vet techs started giving us a room immediately because she could not handle being in the waiting room. And walking her on a leash was not walking at all. It was being yanked down the street by a whining dog who just wanted to play with anything and everything she encountered. Our other dog was a timid puppy at first, so training him looked completely different than training Scout, who is exuberant and grabs life by the horns.
When we finally got her health issues cleared up, off to Taurus she went. Rachel sat down with us for somewhere between a half hour and hour, talking with us about what commands we wanted her to work on with Scout. Two weeks later, we came for the followup and to pick Scout up, and Scout was a completely different dog. She is not perfect, by any means, but she is able to contain her energy enough to be open to correction and to pay attention to treats, even with distractions around. Rachel trained us in how to maintain what Scout had learned and continue to improve on the skills we need to work on. She has had two follow-ups where Rachel met us at home and another Taurus location to work on her leash reactivity. We have not done as much as we should in terms of following up with her leash training, so she is still not good on leash, but that is our fault. We get her exercise in other ways (dog park visits, playing with her dog-brother, and playdates with dog-friends). And, she passed the ultimate test recently: I took her to the vet for a follow-up, and we made it in the waiting room with 3 other dogs for 20 minutes until our name was called! I used lots of small hot dog pieces as treats and used the skills Rachel taught me in order to keep her energy contained. I was so proud of her and excited! It was the first vet visit with her where I did not choke up with tears. The folks at Taurus are wonderful and care immensely about our dogs. I trust them 100% and cannot thank them enough for helping us fit Scout into our home! read more