Melanie is amazing. My pitbull had some PTSD resulting from a traumatic experience he'd experienced on a plane trip a few years back. After seeing him a few times the Vet recommended a strong treatment of prozac to help alleviate his symptoms. However, before going the chemical route I wanted to try solving his symptoms in a more holistic manner.
After a few renowned trainers told me he was a lost cause, trainers who probably build their reputation based on the easiest of cases, Melanie Bennet entered the picture. We had a consultation and Melanie was compassionate with my dog and helped me understand his mindset as well as a training regimen that could help him improve. She was very realistic in managing my expectations and helped me understand what was achievable in the training and what would be a stretch.
I enrolled my dog in a 4-week training bootcamp where Melanie focused on teaching my dog relaxation techniques. Some things I observed after my first visit is that he would lay down a lot, I thought he was tired or scared but then learned Melanie trained him to do that whenever he was overly aroused. Similarly he would stop moving his tail to calm himself down. Throughout successive visits I observed how my dog was more composed and relaxed. He was also paying more attention to me so he could follow my lead. After the first three weeks he had been able to learn to calm himself down enough to reinforce the basics and learn a few cute tricks. He learned how to walk on a gentle leader and how to spin and touch a cone on command. When he came back home people could not believe what they were seeing. I no longer had to hide my dog in my bedroom whenever I had visitors in an attempt to shield them from my dog's anxiety. As long as the visitors knew the ground rules to avoid arousing my dog too much, we had a perfect interaction, something that would have been impossible before. Furthermore, the training did not end there. Melanie provided extensive documentation on what I could do to reinforce and continue his training, which was very useful for me as I did not know how to avoid undoing all of Melanie's fantastic work.
Overall, I highly recommend Melanie to any person who wants to have their dog properly trained, especially is that dog needs special attention. Melanie is a professional of the highest level of loves her job and is dedicated to the welfare of the dogs she trains. In the 8 years I've had my dog, and the countless trainers that have tried to help him, I had never met anyone like her. She has my full trust when it comes to my dog. read more