Muddy Paws Dog Boarding and Obedience School

We unfortunately did not have a positive experience with Muddy Paws for our Doberman. Our Doberman has socialization issues due from being taken from her litter too young (last of the litter, sold at 5 weeks old). We did our best efforts of socializing her the best we could on our own, however We acknowledged that we needed professional help and a jump start for our dog to help her be more confident and get over her issues. We found Muddy Paws and we were very upfront with our dog’s behavioral issues. After our consult we decided on doing a two week board and train. During this time I was told our dog was making “very slow progress” with the socializing and was recommended we extend an extra week (to three weeks) so we could see a difference. I asked upfront if I should take her to a different trainer, and I was told that she was “not giving up on her.” Even though she acknowledged she “is not a behavioral trainer” she said she was “up for the challenge”. After the 3 weeks, we picked up our dog and although she made some progress, overall she sill has the same socialization issues. We were told what to do for training to keep on working on her ourselves, and we were told that with our 3 week board and train it included a 3 day refresher course. My understanding was we would work with her over the next year and let her mature a bit and then come back for the refresher training. Around a year after her original board and train, I reached out to schedule the refresher training. During our correspondence, nothing was said to me about this being outside of the preferred time frame for the refresher training. When we dropped off our dog for the refresher training, at that point we were told “we waited too long for the refresher training” and she will probably have to start from scratch with training and charge us for retraining her (which also makes no sense because she has made a lot of progress over the year). We told her up front “no, just do whatever you can that is included in the refresher training, and if you feel you can’t work with her then we will just use the refresher training towards boarding instead.” We didn’t receive any texts, pictures, updates at all during the 3 days. We came back to pick her up and were told that “we clearly didn’t follow up on our homework” and she was unable to do any training with her. She then Charged us almost $140 for boarding, which was not expected. I was never told any rates or that this would not be included in the refresher training. She then told us that she would refuse to give us our dog back until we paid the money to her, despite the miscommunication for pricing. I know she is a great trainer for dogs who are well bred and just need training for people who don’t know how to teach basic manners/obedience, or are looking for military specific level training and response from the dog. She did teach our dog some good obedience training during the 3 weeks she did the board and train. However we ultimately spent a lot of money on the 3 weeks board and train for issues that were ultimately outside her scope for training and the issues are unresolved (which was THE reason we took our dog here). Then the lack of transparency/communication with the follow up and ultimately blaming us for not reaching out. She says she reached out to us however I never received any texts, emails, fb messages, any sort of correspondence of follow up. And it does not sit well with me how we were charged and how she handled the situation (blaming us) with the refresher training despite her having multiple opportunities before pick up to let us know she would charge that. She has since offered to meet us at a park to “honor the refresher training”, however I do not feel comfortable bringing my dog to her anymore after the last interaction. If we knew we would what we know now we would have found other boarding/ training options for our dog and not taken her here.