FirstBark
They charged me for an "assessment" but never interacted with my dog. He spent most of the time trying to sell me on his services. I feel I paid for nothing. They also had a "one size fit all" approach.
Business response
We're genuinely sorry to hear you feel that way Stan and certainly don't feel the 2 Star rating is warranted . We strive to offer personalized and well-thought-out training methods for each dog. I did interact with your dog as much as your dog wanted to. Your dog is quite shy and was more comfortable sitting on the couch between you and your wife. There was no need for me to pressure your dog to interact further as you signed up and paid for a Client Needs Assessment not a Dog Behavior Evaluation. You told me that your dog is reactive toward other dogs and I believed you so there was no need to put your dog in that situation just for me to see it. Again, this meeting was about talking about your needs. Your wife wanted to be able to take your dog with you when camping up north and we could accomplish that during private lessons so I explained how we would go about things. There was very little talk about sales, most of the conversation was about what you needed and how we would go about that. In the end, your wife wanted to go forward with training but you didn't. You stated that you would rather spend the money on boarding rather than training which would result in you not taking your dog with you on trips. You also had the option of doing the group online Needs Assessment for free but you chose the in person for the nominal fee. So I'm sorry you don't feel your expectations were met but I listened to you both intentently, explained how the training would work and made recommendations for you. And, when you left you thanked me for my time. - Michael Burkey, CEO