I notice that the reviews on Waterspook Labradors are not very recent, which causes me to wonder what has changed and why our experience was so bad. In hindsight both my husband and I did not have a good feeling when we first arrived at the facility. Our puppy was reluctant to let the trainer come near her, or touch her. That should have been our first clue that our puppy did not feel comfortable with the trainer. Communications with the trainer focused on negative aspects of the puppy...food aggressive, only wants to do what is fun for her, wants to pick fights with other dogs... That is not the dog we brought up to Waterspook Labradors. We brought up a dog that was used to being around a 5 year old lab, two small dogs, and a Newfoundland. She ate her food beside her 5 year old sister and did not show any food aggression. She played like a normal lab puppy and took correction well from the older lab. She was able to sit, stay (for short periods of time), heel, come, and kennel. Three weeks into the training we receive a call that our puppy had viciously attacked a dachshund that the trainer was boarding and we needed to come and get her immediately. Upon arrival, my husband was greeted by a spiritless, sad puppy that smelled to high heaven, was filthy, and not the dog we had left at the facility three weeks prior. From the description of our dogs behavior at the training facility it sounded like the dog needed to be put down. It turns out that our dog did not cause physical harm to the small dog, but knowing a bit about Dachshund behavior and lab puppies one can only surmise what the small dog may have done to provoke such a response from a puppy. I am still wondering why the dogs were even in the same area. If my dog was showing so many aggressive behaviors why was she off-leash and out of the kennel? There are just too many unanswered questions. In addition to the dogs that were being trained, and boarded at Waterspook, there was also a large new litter of puppies to be tended to. Perhaps the trainer had too much going on at one time. I have taken the dog to the vet to rule out any potential medical causes for the described behavior; I have spoken at length with the breeder;, and nothing aligns with the behavior described by the trainer. Both the breeder and the vet suggested we just give her a lot of love and that the happy dog we brought up to Waterspook will come back. Needless to say , we are very gun-shy about taking the dog to another trainer for gun-dog training and will certainly listen to our gut-instincts and "listen" to our dogs behavior before committing to another trainer. read more
