All Dawgs

We signed up for the second level class after doing the first level at Camp Bow Wow. As someone in the rescue world, the pushing of the prong collars rubbed me the wrong way from the get go. The rescue we foster for bans the use of such collars on their adopted dogs and I personally feel that they are completely unnecessary. We pushed that aside and I took him to a few training classes but I did not like the atmosphere and everything that was homework, we had already been taught at Camp Bow Wow. I give it 3 stars because the trainers were nice, but I will not be going back.

My dog is going through service dog training at All Dawgs. LuAnn is always friendly and welcoming. She is one of the instructors. Lu Ann and Diane [Diane is the head instructor and owner] have both had many years of experience with training. There are assistant instructors who are also helpful and keep the group classes running smoothly. Diane tested my dog thoroughly to ascertain where he is in obedience skills, startle tests, and tests for resource guarding. These tests are also used in canine good citizen testing. The Service Dog contract was thoroughly explained, including the no refund and no make-up sessions, which I do not find to be problematic. All Dawgs is offering a service. In order to take full advantage of the service, we have to commit to showing up. Diane is a professional in the highest sense of the word. She has many years of experience and it shows. She is a proponent of balanced training. Balanced training includes positivity as well as the other three quadrants of training based on behaviorism. A dog is not automatically put into an e-collar or a prong collar. These tools are only used on a few individual dogs [NOT most or all dogs] after careful evaluation. The owner or handler also gets professional instruction IF use of these adversive tools are indicated. The dogs do not stay using them for life. Willie loves to run. He was running up and down Route 85 in the grass as a hobby. He knew the commands. His drive to run knocked out any of his obedience training. Yes, we did use an e-collar to reinforce the commands he already knew. An e-collar can cause a dog to feel pain. This became a safety issue for Willie. Getting hit by a car can hurt a dog much worse than the prudent use of an e-collar can. Willie no longer requires the e-collar today. My reviews are always unsolicited. I highly recommend All Dawgs to anyone who is committed to giving their dogs the best possible life. The photo is of Willie, a black and white dog with spots, relaxing while awaiting his turn in class. Chrissy and Willie

All Dawgs is ok. If you want to take your dog to get ok basic obedience training, then I think All Dawgs is fine for that. Anything else…you may want to look elsewhere. I took the leash training class with Diane which I couldn’t get through due to her abrasive personality. At one point my pup got reactive and Diane told me to pull him toward me. So, I did what she said, and she immediately snapped at me that I was doing it wrong. Diane talks a lot in class, but doesn’t provide any visual demonstrations and then will snap at you when you’re unsure. I think Diane loves dogs and has put so much of herself into her business, but she has an unfortunate acidity that rubs people the wrong way. I believe this is why there are so many bad reviews. I also took the apprentice dogs class and found out just how anxious my new dog was around other dogs. It became obvious that our dog wasn’t in the right spot, and despite me liking Luanne as an instructor, she had a whole class to attend to and it was likely difficult for her to give proper guidance on how to help ease his anxiety while in class. They also did not have any sort of partition to provide like other training facilities offer. All Dawgs uses balanced training…sort of. The assistant instructor yelled, and I mean YELLED, at another (very young) dog. It was pretty scary even for the humans and really turned us off to the class. We didn’t end up going back, plus our dog got a URI from class. So, if you are looking for a positive reinforcement/LIMA approach, All Dawgs does not use this. I’m not anti-balanced training, but I am anti-screaming at dogs and scaring them. I am happy to say that my dog now sits, stays, and lays down very nicely. So, we did see some positive results in our dog, but just did not have a pleasant experience with the actual business. I won’t be taking my dog back there since I think there are much better options in the capital region.