Hudson Valley Hounds

Tessa's impact on not only our dog Una's life but our own life is unmeasurable. Due to Una's fear based reactivity we're unable to have friends and family over to our home, unable to console or calm her during moments of distress, and our dog walks left us all in emotional ruin. We came to Tessa in desperation and she took us in. She taught us numerous skills, techniques, games that helped Una view the world as a little bit less scary of a place. Tessa taught us how to watch and understand the signs our dog was giving to us so we could step in before, during, and after moments of overwhelm. We recently transitioned from the hudson valley to a loud stressful stimulating big city, and even through virtual sessions she helped us all relax and trust the training. Now, she can meet new people in the home and exist in a crazy world without being completely crippled by fear. Una is a different dog after working with Tessa and we are all so incredibly grateful.

Tessa has helped to completely transform our lives and the life of our dog!! We felt desperately helpless to our dogs' reactivity when we first started. For many years our dog struggled to simply exist without fear - we could never introduce her to anyone in our lives without her becoming completely overwhelmed and walks were dreaded out of fear of her lunging and barking at other dogs. Tessa met us in our overwhelm with such empathy and understanding, gently guiding us to acquire more understanding not just of what to do but why we were doing it. We learned to read our dogs cues, intuit her needs, confidently advocate for her, and help her build resilience and honor her recovery. She helped us to change our frame of mind from seeing everything that was going wrong to seeing small - and eventually large - wins everyday. Today, our dog has a huge toolbox of skills to help her in moments of overwhelm or fear, she is engaged, trusting, and responsive with us, and she moves so much more confidently. With Tessa's help we even navigated a move from rural NY to a major metropolitan area without too much distress! We are eternally grateful to Tessa for supporting us in learning to provide a life for a dog in which she doesn't have to live in fear.

I’d never trained a dog before and didn’t realize what it takes! Tessa has been training me and my reactive 2-year-old cattle dog Ziggy and I’m so grateful to Tessa for all the progress we’ve made. She’s incredibly knowledgeable, positive, and supportive. The training has helped Ziggy build skills to be more relaxed and engaged, and really fostered my bond with her. Tessa has also been very patient with me and given me the skills I need to train Ziggy. Sometimes I say to Tessa, “you want me to do what?”, but when I do I always see the benefit. When I was looking for a trainer, I kept hearing about Tessa from friends and others, and they were right! I highly, highly recommend her! Thank you Tessa!

I've worked with more than a handful of excellent trainers, and Tessa outshines them all. The difference? Her compassion for and understanding of dogs matches that of her human clients. She really gets the issues dog owners have, in addition to those that naturally come up for dogs because they have to adapt to the human world. She has helped me so much with my young dog's tendency to fearfulness. Her science-based, ethical, and incredibly knowledgeable approach to shaping desirable behaviors is best for dogs' welfare--and it works. I feel so lucky to have found Tessa and Hudson Valley Hounds.