Always Training K9s

5 stars is not enough!!! We are blown away after our experience with Nikki/ always training k9s! We rescued our American bully/ pittie baby Silas at 9 weeks and he had a very rough start to life. After having him home for a month or so, although he was so precious I was getting the feeling that he wasn’t a “regular puppy” and his behavior and energy needed to be addressed quickly as he was growing rapidly and building muscle daily- I could picture down the road him being very hard to handle and out of control with some serious attitude. I saw Nikki’s work with other dogs on her very in depth training stories and knew she was the one who could help us set our boy on the right track! We sent him to Nikki for one week puppy board and train as soon as he was 4 months as she mentioned it’s never too early to start training. He went for foundational puppy work but what he came back with is SO much more than that! We thought he was a little stubborn and high energy, but after Nikki got him in her care we realized it was a lot more intense than we initially thought (sorry Nikki) and he was dubbed the most hard-headed dog she has ever trained. The amount of time, energy and patience she poured into him and the transformation and mindset shift she created with him is just unbelievable. He struggled with no off switch, pushing boundaries, over excited about food, pulling on the leash and trying to take the lead on walks, pushiness of wanting to do things when he wanted to do them and not really caring what we had to say unless food was involved. He came home with this amazing calm energy!!! He is a better version of himself and we are simply amazed. He now: -walks in a follow state calmly with autosit -pauses and waits for permission before eating -respects door boundaries and waits for permission to exit -goes to his place and can stay there -Respects our first first baby who is a little older and requires some space -comes when we call him -has crate manners and doesn’t try to bulldoze past us, but waits calmly for permission to exit -the list goes on and on Nikki’s understanding of dogs as individuals and their behaviors is truly incredible, not only is she able to recognize and correct in a very short amount of time, she explains the WHY which helps owners and handlers be able to apply the same tools and earn the respect of our dogs as well. She did such a thorough job of sharing exactly what she was doing, communicated with me (probably more than she wanted 🤪) and gave us the confidence to be able to continue Silas training at home and be able to fully enjoy him and maximize his potential. I literally feel like she changed our lives and our home environment by helping us with our sweet boy. I cannot recommend her enough! She is patient, detailed, highly knowledgeable, great at communicating, an excellent trainer and care taker and also a superb teacher to help owners understand their dogs and confidently give them the tools and resources to succeed. She went above and beyond with our special pup and we are forever thankful!!! Always training K9s is the absolute best!! If you are even considering sending your pup to training, I say go for it and it will absolutely be worth it!

Sent our almost 2 yr old Pit Banks to Nikki's 2 week board and train and can not even begin to explain how worth it it has been! Nikki was so patient and gracious with me, willing to have several (sometimes long) phone calls prior to bringing my pup to her. She gladly answered every question and concern in depth, which eased my mind. She took note of what concerns we really hoped to have her work on with Banks as well as our family dynamic so that Banks could be sound for outings with the fam as well as things that would make life overall much easier for everyone at home as well. She took Banks on countless outings, to a restaurant, shopping, working with her in wide open spaces, outside of dog parks (where she could see and hear all the chaos, but remain neutral and obedient), inside of stores, around her own dogs, and even around large crowds of people and dogs as well as loud noises at Oktoberfest. All on top of working with her inside of her own home every day and night. She was basically living it up at Nikki's! Banks had never been crated before and seemed to adjust quickly to that, and now she even enjoys hanging in her crate all of her own free will. She provides videos with context the whole way, explaining what they are working, why it is helpful. This was our family's favorite part because we got to see all of her progress while we were missing her! It was also a great precursor to us seeing how Banks is understanding commands and how to deliver them to her in the best way. Banks was an amazing dog to begin with, but Nikki helped turn her into our dream dog by giving her all of the healthy boundaries, obedience and skills we couldn't give her on our own. She even came to our home for Banks's graduation and trained us so we knew just how to keep her set for success! Our pup loved her time with Nikki and her sweet Sailor and Charlie. I would recommend her 1000 times over. Nikki is the best! Check out her Instagram to see her addictive stories working with tons of different pups!

If we could give Nikki a 20 star review, we would! We sent our five year old Pitt mix to Nikki as he was Velcro to me everywhere I went, constantly anxious, and very needy. With a toddler and a new baby on the way, I needed to get Sully’s anxiety under control so I could focus on our kids. Leading up to Sully’s training, Nikki was very communicative and put all our concerns to rest. During the training, Nikki sent us updates with photos and videos throughout and I felt I learned so much from following along on the Instagram videos Nikki posted. Nikki explained the process of sully coming home and how the training of us would go. Nikki is so incredibly knowledgeable and patient especially when it came to training us. We could not recommend Nikki enough for anyone who is looking to get their furry friend trained. We will forever be thankful for the pup who came home and all the information Nikki has given us!!!

I wish I could give Nikki more than five stars! We ended up adopting our Wags & Walks foster, Marceline, but we had some initial hesitation due to her dog reactivity and overall lack of basic training and confidence. We don’t know anything about her past other than she faced some big traumas based on how timid and fearful she was of everything. Wags highly recommended Nikki, and after our initial phone call with her, the rest was history. Marceline has made leaps and bounds of progress after just a few sessions with Nikki, and we finally feel equipped as dog parents that we now have the proper “tools” to work with Marceline outside of her training sessions. Nikki really understands a dog and is able to read its body language and motives, a lot of which we didn’t even pick up on. It feels like we unlocked a new language and can finally understand what Marceline has been saying to us this whole time. Marceline now knows basic obedience and house manners with Nikki’s help and we are currently working through her dog reactivity, which we are also seeing big improvements with. Nikki’s expertise is incredible to watch, as every dog is different. She is able to pull on her extensive knowledge to tailor the training to what works best for each dog. Blanket approaches we’ve been told before in the past never seemed to work for us (like we were speaking the wrong language!), but with Nikki’s understanding of Marceline, we’re able to find what she responds to and it’s amazing to see things finally click. We leave every training session energized and excited to continue working with Marceline on our own time. It’s only been about a month of training with Nikki, but before we officially adopted Marceline we felt nervous and wanted so badly to help her with no clue how, and now we see a bright future for her and look forward to every session with Nikki. So much that we are doing a boarding at the end of this month! We feel so seen and understood by Nikki with all of our endless (😉) questions that she answers with expertise and grace, and if Marceline could talk I know she’d say she adores Nikki too (and she’s picky about her circle of people!!)