Always Training K9s

Nicki is amazing! I recently moved from a house in FL to an apartment in TN and for my dogs (who have always had issues) it was a rough transition. My female Great Pyrenees began coming extremely leash reactive with other dogs in the complex, walks were so frustrating and unpredictable. She is almost 100 pounds, so I knew something had to change, but did not know the steps to get there. I spoke with Nicki for an hour learning about how she trains, her life and explaining what was going on with my dogs. I was only going to send one dog, but as I found out, my other who is extremely fearful of the outside world would benefit as well with the two week board and train. Nicki was able to win over both of my usually stand-offish dogs in days! Lilly went first and was rocking her training within a few days. Nicki kept me updated with her progress everyday and I had daily evidence of how Nicki works and treated my dog. Lillian and Burley got basic obedience, excursions to busy areas, and off leash e-collar training. The night before the dogs were scheduled to come home, Nicki has a Zoom meeting with you to go over what is expected of the owner when its time to take over. The day the dogs came home, Nicki stayed 2 hours to teach me how to walk the dogs, give them commands, how to use their e-collar and when to use it. I cannot thank Nicki enough, the dogs and I have a better relationship and already have new questions for Nicki when their included follow-up sessions happen. Nicki does her job so well and has so much patience, she is awesome!

We needed help with our 9 month old husky. After spending pretty much all summer at home with her while I wasn’t working, I didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t bad, but I just felt like I couldn’t control her and her separation anxiety she wouldn’t let my husband or me leave the house for 5 minutes without throwing a fit. I decided to look up dog training in my area and am so thankful I found Always Training K9s and Nikki. Nikki called the same day I originally contacted and was so kind and helpful and wasn’t judgement at all. Our girl came back home from her two week board and train last Saturday, and she is so well behaved. She still has her little personality, but I feel like she listens to me more now, and I am able to communicate with her better thanks to all of Nikki’s help. At first, I wasn’t sure if we would be able to afford it, but after speaking to Nikki, my husband and I were sold! Oh and also now I can take my girl on runs without being jumped on or tugged on the whole time. Nikki sent us so many videos of our girl the whole time and was always updating us and answering the one zillion questions we had. Truly an amazing experience! 10/10 recommend and it’s wonderful being able to trust someone so much with your dog! We can’t thank you enough!

Nikki is a Godsend! Saved us from having to rehome our doodle! If you are on the fence or can't decide, just do it! About a year ago, my wife and i along with our young three boys welcomed our new Goldendoodle pup, Mario, into our lives. We've had dogs before (a goldendoodle that we lost to cancer and a minipoodle that has been a part of our family for 13 years) that we self-trained and could even do a few tricks, so we were fairly familiar with what it takes to raise and integrate a puppy into our family. And then we had Mario.... Mario could be described as a loving teddy bear, goofball, nuclear reactor and natural disaster rolled up into one. House training was not happening, our house was being destroyed, and our boys were sustaining minor injuries (not from any aggression but mario thought he was an 8 pound yorkie vs 65 pound doodle) and walks were impossible. My mom (who visits TN 2-3 times a year) said she wouldnt be able to visit us any more with Mario in the house. When we took Mario to the vet to set up a neutering, appx 5 mins into the appointment, mario was so energetic and flighty that the vet said "ok this isnt normal" and prescribed him trazadone. Two months on the trazadone and a failed 8 week training class from a big box pet store, Mario was still being Mario and our sanity was deteriorating. One night, my wife and i had the same thought and one that we NEVER thought we'd have..."we need to rehome Mario" and even began to do some prelim research on how to go about finding mario a new home. After a week or so of research we couldnt bring ourselves to rehoming Mario and began to consider a board and train program. We had heard about board and training programs and never really considered them as, truth be told, they are not cheap, and we were always the DYI type. But we figured if this could save us from rehoming Mario, it was worth taking a chance. We had called around to several trainers in the area. I wouldnt say any of them were by any means "bad" or should be avoided, but when i spoke to Nikki, there was just something positively different about her. She spent over an hour on the phone with me explaining her process and patiently answering my questions and never once pressured me into signing up with her. She was VERY clear as to what her program was about and the work that would need to be done by our family AFTER training. After giving it some thought, and a couple more phone calls with Nikki, where i expressed my skepticism that Mario was trainable, we took a leap of faith and began training. Throughout training, Nikki sent updates throughout the day along with videos. We saw IMMEDIATE improvement in the videos, even to the point where our boys asked "whose dog is that? he looks like Mario". On the last day of training, Nikki set up a 1hr zoom call with us to review how training went and give us pointers for "drop off day". The next day Nikki arrived at our house with a new Mario and spent ~2hrs showing us how to reintegrate Mario into our lives along with how to reinforce training. We are now 3 months post training and we still cant stop taking about how thankful we are that we went with Nikki. The boys love playing with him. We now take Mario on OFF-LEASH walks throughout the neighborhood and we have received numerous complements from others on how well behaved mario is during walks (thats when my wife and i look at each other and think "if you only knew"). After seeing a few videos now my mom, the one who refused to visit because of mario, is now coming back to visit AND has asked us to bring mario down to FL when we visit her. I could turn this into a novel more than i already have, but we cant thank Nikki enough for her kindness and compassion and for helping keep Mario a part of our family.