Dog's Best Friend Training

We have used Dogs Best Friend to help us with two of our dogs. Our older dog, a rescue, had fear aggression and anxiety issues and we got invaluable help from one of DBF's behaviorists. We now have a four month old puppy who has taken Puppy Kindergarten I, is about to finish Puppy Kindergarten II, and is also taking Puppy Agility. He is a wonderful, smart, and very headstrong puppy and the training through DBF - in class and through conversations - has helped us launch this little guy well. The DBF people are highly skilled in teaching and commanding dog obedience. They are the best!

Unfortunately I found this a waste of money. $400 and the trainer taught us 3 activities to try help calm our dog down when meeting people. She could have easily emailed us the activities (counting 1,2,3 then giving a treat, Dropping a treat, waiting for them to look at you and dropping another treat, and walking and dropping a treat). They didn’t work. We felt the trainer did not listen to our concerns. When she spoke she talked generally - not about our specific dog. It’s unfortunate that 2 other people recommended this and we were very disappointed. We also took a puppy class here that was not good, but we thought individual training and how much they charged would be different. It was not. I do not recommend.

Update 5/1/2023: 5/1/2023 - I was pleased to have Dog's Best Friend contact me within 24 hours after I left my original review. They went out of their way to try to schedule a phone consult within 48 hours (unfortunately, my schedule didn't allow that). Our Behaviorist emailed and provided some excellent insights and solutions. She was also reassuring, which helped a great deal. We're so appreciative! I'm sorry to leave such a mixed review. We worked over Zoom with one of the Behaviorists and had such excellent results! She listened carefully, asked pertinent questions, and provided a wealth of good, practical advice. I felt as if she made a great effort to understand the situation and how our dogs interacted. She recommended videos, readings, etc. which was an extra bonus. My issue is that it took three emails for anyone to respond to actually set up the initial consult. In addition, after we had our consultation, the Behaviorist encouraged us to call or email with any questions. Unfortunately, we recently had an incident and I needed advice on how to avoid it in the future. I emailed about this almost two weeks ago and haven't had a response. I don't have a problem paying for the Behaviorist's additional time and help, but please don't tell me we can come to you with any questions and then ignore us. I understand that many businesses are lacking employees, so perhaps this is the problem. Regardless, I've come out of this encounter feeling as if no one wants to help us. This is too bad considering our excellent Zoom experience.