Blue Dog Training & Behavior

Sarah has supported and saved our family during a very difficult time with our new puppy. She called us back within a business day and talked with us, providing support and strategies on that Friday evening for nearly 2 hours. The same day, she dropped off super helpful training videos, emailed training information to get us started, and was responsive in text and by phone all weekend until we could see her the following week. Sarah was able to schedule at times that worked best for our family, took our puppy in and kept him during a difficult time of transition, and provided honest, critical information from her analysis. She helped us determine options in moving forward and supported our family in many ways during a very stressful and disappointing time. Sarah is incredibly responsive and compassionate to the impacts on our whole family. She has helped us create a plan moving forward and is supporting us greatly in finding our forever puppy. I really don't know how we would have gotten through this without her. Her vast knowledge is critical when a dog is aggressive and while she is an expert in the technical and training aspects, she also deeply understand and supports the emotional impacts on a family. My kids and I truly see her as a hero and feel so lucky we found her!

Sarah from Blue Dog has been working with me and my moderately reactive, fearful two year old female Chihuahua since December of 2015. I got her from a shelter and didn't see signs of this behavior until I got her home. Sarah has given me suggestions to keep her calm and busy since it is winter and we cannot exercise outside. I have watched her video The Language of Dogs which has taught me to understand Britta's subtle signals of fear and potential negative reactions. She has also given me tips for potty training and incessant begging. Although my dog has improved, I am hopeful once nicer weather arrives we can be outdoors more and practice. Thanks Sarah and Andrew!

Sarah Kalnajs of Blue Dog Training has unique qualifications that sets her apart from other trainers and behaviorists in Madison. She has transformed the way I communicate and interact with my dogs, bringing some much-needed serenity into my home. I adopted a young White Shepherd that started to exhibit fear aggression. After countless books and DVDs, I wasn’t getting very far. Pinch collars, shock collars (never again!), positive reinforcement, negative punishment, you name it. I was stressed, resented my dog, couldn’t rehome him, and feared he’d end up euthanized. Sarah invited me, my roommate, and both my dogs to her location for an assessment. Despite my dog’s fear aggression, I felt safe and confident while there. She was even willing to introduce her dogs to mine in a safe manner, which really helped illustrate his issues. I was given an impressively comprehensive rehabilitation plan, addressing the problem from all angles: training programs, medication recommendations, potential medical issues, behavior modification tools, and new ways to interact with my dogs that stimulate their minds. One of the most useful parts of the rehabilitation plan was MY education. I thought I understood dog body language pretty well, but Sarah’s “Language of Dogs” DVD corrected many misconceptions I had. With a newfound ability to interpret my dogs’ body language, I quickly realized the things I thought they loved actually gave them significant anxiety. The Blue Dog hands-free leash is worth every penny. Nothing raised my stress more than having my dog jerk my arms around when his arousal was increasing. The hands-free system allows me to remain safe and calm when taking my dogs outside, preventing me from sending “bad vibes” through the leash. Sarah has remained committed to my dog’s rehabilitation and has shown genuine concern for him. She is happy to answer questions as they come up and will periodically ask how everything is going. Try getting that level of attention at a typical dog training facility! I have been seeing more and more trainers popping up telling people to slap shock collars on their dogs and assert their dominance. Run far away from these people! Sarah is, hands-down, the most qualified person to help you modify your dog’s undesirable behavior. She has dedicated her life to understanding animal behavior, and is the only Certified Dog Behavior Consultant in the Madison area. There really is no other choice, in my book.

We recently started using Sarah when our 11 week old puppy was just under 8 weeks. We are a busy family with 4 children and wanted a well trained dog but didn't have the time to do it the right way on our own. Before we bought our pup I searched for "in-home dog training" and thankfully found Sarah at Blue Dog. Right from our first phone call I could tell that I found the right person. She knew her stuff and is more than willing to share it whenever needed. We opted to go for a full puppy program that started with helping us get ready for our new puppy (showed us her favorite products, what to do when we first brought her home, etc.). After bonding with our puppy over a weekend Sarah did a 5 day (plus threw in an extra day free) board & train. After being woken up in the middle of the night to let the puppy out for a few nights we were happy to put her in Sarah's hands for awhile and were happy when she came back already having learned some things and sleeping through the night. After having her back home Sarah came to our house to do "Puppy ABC's" with us going over a ton of information on training our new puppy. This really helped our confidence in dealing with the new puppy as we were afraid that she would un-learn what she had learned with Sarah. She effectively taught my husband and I and our children so much during that time that we have been able to use with our dog since. We still have a two week board and train where our puppy will go stay with Sarah for more intensive training as well as more in-home training coming up. I have no doubt that our puppy will be a super-star dog when she is done. We were so happy that we opted to have Sarah take our puppy for weekly socialization outings for 6 weeks too because we knew how critical all of those experiences would be to her as a puppy and we just don't have the time to do it. Throughout this time we have also received emails with information, training videos (with Sarah training our puppy as examples!!!), and fun pictures and videos of our puppy from Sarah and her husband, Andrew. I have to mention, too, that we have always had dogs and this is the first time that I feel that we are doing it right. Buying all of these services is a bit of a splurge but I consider it a long term investment that will really pay off for the life of our dog. It is so worth it when I see our puppy really thriving and happy and fitting in wonderfully with our family and when I text Sarah dozens and dozens of questions and know I will get thorough answers back. She really goes above and beyond and we are so happy we found her!

Sarah saved us! We adopted a puppy from a shelter in Kentucky. The puppy showed signs of severe aggression early on. We are experienced dog owners but not experts in dealing with the scary aggression shown by a 10 week old puppy. We talked to our vet who gave us a list of behaviorists. After doing some research and getting recommendations from neighbor friends, it became clear that Blue Dog Training was the group we needed to work with. Sarah took a lot of time to talk to me over the phone in detail about the background on us, the puppy, and the behavior. She was extremely professional and reassured me that she would be able to help us. She understood the urgent nature of our situation (we have children in our house) and worked to quickly fit us into her schedule. She is an expert behaviorist and noticed all sorts of subtle cues about our puppy's behavior that gave her red flags. Unfortunately, our gut instinct was confirmed - we were not able to keep the puppy in our house. Sarah went ABOVE and BEYOND calling all sorts of rescue groups and working with our vet to help us find a place that could take the puppy and provide the extensive behavior rehabilitation she will need. It was an incredibly stressful, upsetting experience to go through b/c we wanted to have this puppy be a member of our family. Sarah helped us every step of the way. She took video of the entire assessment so we could share it with the rescue group and our vet. She reassured us that we had done everything right and personally did everything she could to help us. She's going to help guide us with finding rescue groups to work with so that we can find the right puppy for our family! We can't say enough positive things about Sarah and highly recommend her.