Grand Rapids K9 - Dog Training

Thank you for the feedback Sydney, Juneau was a wonderful pupper to work with. Thanks again!

Hi Courtney, I apologize that this happened. I (owner) take full responsibility for this. How your appointment was deleted from our calendar, I cant explain why or how. I'm not making excuses, as we should have done much better communicating with you and following up. I understand your time is valuable and sincerely apologize for wasting it. I'd be happy to offer you a complimentary training package, to show you what we can really offer. However, I understand if you aren't interested anymore. To fix this problem going forward, starting January 1st, we are implementing new software (CRM), that tracks every appointments actions so this doesn't happen in the future. Again, sincerest apologies. -Jason (owner)

Hi Rob, Thank you for taking my call today, your additional feedback was helpful. However, I was quite surprised by your review and as of 11/21, frankly it's full of misinformation - I would like a chance to respond all these allegations. First, I have never said fixing separation anxiety is easy. Not to you, not to anyone, not ever. I said doing the obedience side of things was easy if he was food motivated. In my experience, it takes weeks/months/years to fix and sometimes it's not possible to fix it with training. You failed to mention your dog even had separation anxiety when you first reached out. The website-inquiry to me confirms this. Second, I did not "swiftly put your dog in a crate for hours" like you describe. Honestly, I'm not sure where you are pulling this information from, as you left the building within minutes after you signed our contract and Norbert was out running in the training room the entire time. Every single dog that arrives for a Board & Train goes outside for the first ~30-45 minutes so they can acclimate on where they are supposed to go potty and to have some fun in the yard. After this, yes, I put your dog in a crate so I could finish up training sessions. This also gives me a read on how bad his separation anxiety is. Third, 95% of dogs refuse to eat any of their food on day 1 away from home. This was the case even when I ran my business out of my home in Grandville. Ask any trainer, veterinarian, vet tech, kennel attendant or anyone who has worked in a kennel and they will confirm this. I even have a bullet point in my contract, that you signed, that states "your dog will be fed an appropriate amount of daily food/water but that the dogs weight will almost guaranteed drop a few pounds due to the stress of being in a new place". Call it first day jitters, but every dog is given food every single day. I cannot force your dog to eat it's dinner....like the old saying "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink". Fourth, in the best interest of your dog, and after working with him for a day, yes, I made a judgement call that he would not do well in my building. I didn't believe my program would be able to fix the issues you wanted fixing and to the degree you wanted them fixed. I want to be able to stand behind my work at the end of the day. So I made the call to have you come get him and give you 100% of your money back. If I thought I could have helped your dog, I would have kept him. I've been doing this long enough to know what training can help with and what training cannot help with. You see it as me giving up, but I see it as making a sound business decision so that I don't have upset clients with me at the end of the program because I made promises I couldn't deliver on. Lastly, as far as his behavior being "much worse". I suppose that this is entirely possible, however, it is exceedingly rare that a dog would have one bad experience to which it would affect their behavior at home indefinitely. This is compounded by the fact that I did everything in my power to make your dog happy. When he was here, and to raise his spirits, I took him for walks (plural), I had him out of the crate by my desk while I made follow up calls, I tried to get him to play with the ball/frisbee both inside and outside, I put him around other social friendly dogs to help him acclimate, but there is only so much I can do to make a dogs experience enjoyable. After doing all that, and having no impact on his behavior, I knew it was time to send him home. Knowing the limits of training, calling you to explain the situation, returning your dog to you, refunding you immediately, and apologizing for it not being able to workout was the moral and ethically right thing to do. I stand behind my decision 100% and if the same thing happened in the future I wouldn't change how things played out.