Daniel Dagg, Bay Area Dog Trainer

I wasn’t just looking for help training my Dog. I wanted to understand the WHY behind his behavior. That’s when I contacted Dan. As an animal behaviorist, I knew from our first phone conversation that he would not just train, but teach me the behavior from my dog’s perspective. Dan got to know the personality of both myself and my dog (a high energy Vizsla), enabling him to tailor our training, giving me the insight I needed to regain my confidence and effectively train the correct behavior. With consistent training, I now have a well rounded, confident (still high energy) Vizsla who stays, comes and waits patiently at the door. Thanks Dan, both Drake and I are grateful to have met you. PS: Thanks for the cat tip, it’s working.

We reached out to Dan for help with our English bulldog Porkchop, who was having trouble with patience and respecting physical boundaries, especially around our new baby. Dan was a great communicator, friendly, and great with our dog, but most importantly, he helped train my wife and me to be more affective trainers of our dog. He really understands the canine pack mentality, and got us to think in dog terms instead of treating our dog like a human baby (which, oops!--we had been doing for too long). His approach is very holistic, meaning that it wasn't just memorizing new commands, but understanding how our dog thinks and how making clear her place in the pecking order makes her less confused about her role and more likely to respect commands. We mainly wanted to feel safer having our baby around our dog, which we accomplished, but we ended up having a better behaved and more secure dog all around! One side note is that Dan is a TALKER (he'll be the first to admit this!), and sometimes gets a little side tracked when he's reminded of a story or something unrelated to the goals we were trying to meet, but he's a sweet guy and we enjoyed working with him. We just came to realize that his 2 hour sessions included a lot of socializing and weren't quite as jam packed with training as we thought they would be. But he's definitely a "relationships" guy and made us feel comfortable with him and has offered to be available by phone just to chat about any issues or questions that come up without having to book additional sessions, and that's much appreciated. If you're having issues with your dog, or just want the best behaved dog possible, Dan knows his stuff and I would highly recommend him.

Dan was recommended by a close friend and I'm so glad I contacted him! I have a dog that gets over excited around other dogs and it was a huge source of anxiety . My dog has improved so much I actually enjoy taking him out now. I realized I was doing so many things wrong. Dan is very thorough and patient and checks in still to see how my dog is doing . You are paying for his behavior expertise so you have to do the work on your end too . Highly recommend !

We recently completed obedience training with Dan for our Australian Shepherd. Dan is professional and knowledgeable and we have learned a lot from him. He provided a variety of insights into dog behavior that explained what works best for consistent results. He also made super useful recommendations for other items such as food and accessories. We appreciate the help and were very happy with the results, would definitely recommend Dan for any dog training!