Metro Dog Training

My neighbors recommended Metro Dog Training, and I’m so glad that we found Kris! I adopted Ash a little over a year ago and have struggled with his strong reactivity to other dogs for most of that time, until we started sessions with Kris at the end of December. After months of every walk being a stressful undertaking, Ash has improved so much thanks to the training tools Kris has recommended. More importantly, she has always been available via text and video chat to help us through any issues between private sessions, and she’s been both attentive and patient with our progress through a cold winter. We’ve just started going to Kris’ group sessions in McCarren Park, and likewise those are helping us both gain confidence being around other dogs. I’m incredibly grateful for Kris’ help, and so is Ash! Now that we can spend time in Prospect Park and go on longer walks, I can tell he’s a much happier boy.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND METRO DOG. Metro Dog’s training methods were abusive to my 1 year old mini Australian Shepherd, Ozzie. Metro Dog would choke out my dog on the slip lead to the point of him throwing up. It broke my heart seeing my dog hanging from the slip, eyes bulging out, but I trusted the process thinking this was the only way to see results (which never came.) Ozzie is reactive to dogs out of fear, frustration and high anxiety. Metro Dog tried to fix him by hurting him and scaring him so he would stop reacting. They do not know how to properly use the training tools, slip, prong, and e-collar. They used the e-collar so high that my dog would flinch to the ground. Ozzie was terrified of Twahlee. He would shake and pee himself when Twahlee took the leash. Ozzie has never acted this way with anyone else. • They could not help us with separation anxiety. They said to use the e-collar on Ozzie, which made him more fearful. • Twahlee and Kris gave me conflicting training advice that regressed Ozzie’s training. • Kris was 15-30 minutes late for private training sessions. • Twahlee was difficult to work with. He has a one size fits all dog training approach. When pointing out that his style is negatively impacting my dog, he was demeaning, dismissive, and blamed me instead of giving me proper guidance. • They know nothing about behavior modification training, which is needed to see long term positive changes in dog’s behavior issues. They focused on correcting (abusing) the dog until they stop reacting since they are terrified. I wasted too much money hoping Metro Dog could help me. They only made things worse. Please find a proper dog training. EDIT: In response to Twahlee - I had already successfully introduced Ozzie to my boyfriend's dog and roommates dog prior to starting training with Metro Dog. Twahlee attended my last private session, upon my request to introduce Ozzie to more well behaved dogs in a controlled setting. It was unsuccessful for long term progress because Ozzie was already terrified of Twahlee. He was too scared to even sniff the dog. He avoided the dog because he did not want to be hurt by Twahlee again. It is disappointing that as a dog trainer, Twahlee is unable to tell the difference between a shut down dog and a well behaved happy dog.

I went to Twahlee with Dorothy, a hound dog who never saw a squirrel she didn’t want to chase. I took her to offleash hours and she gave me quite a few scares running towards traffic and ignoring my calls. After a few rigorous training sessions with Twahlee her recall was nearly perfect, and after six sessions it was perfect. I’m always complimented on what a well-trained dog I have, and it’s thanks to Twahlee. Dorothy is also overjoyed every time we bump into him in the neighborhood.

It was so much fun to work with Twahlee on our first puppy Takito. As a new dog owner, we knew nothing about how to train or communicate with a dog, Twahlee teaches us step by step and patiently answered all our concerns and questions. We purchased their silver package, 5 group classes and 5 private classes. As long as we like our private session just focusing on Takito, the group class was so much fun! Dogs learn behavior from each other. They also organized a dog Halloween party, making it even more interesting. ( and Takito won first prize!) We strongly recommend Twahlee and his Metro Dog Training! As he told us, dogs in all stages are trainable, not only a puppy, we are thinking of going back to class when Takito reaches certain age to reinforce his behavior.