Nitro K-9 LLC

*A successful foster-fail* ❤️ I’m so grateful for the incredible progress Dottie has made. When we rescued her in October, she was a fearful, defensive dog, struggling with trust after being dumped. We definitely felt like we needed a major intervention for her wellbeing. We reached out to NitroK9 and was able to get her into an assessment quickly. By pure luck we were able to slide into a rare cancellation spot at the board and train program. After her three week stay, she has returned a totally different well behaved dog. One of the most heartwarming changes is her bond with our older dog—she's seeking companionship instead of dominance. Dottie has also made significant strides in reducing her crate anxiety, no longer Houdini’ing her way out of the crate! Thank you for giving Dottie the chance to become the confident and happy pupper that she deserves to be in this lifetime. We’re so grateful for the love and care you’ve provided! We plan to continue working with NitroK9 now that we feel confident that we can be the right family for her.

We just finished 14 lessons with our 2 year old Maltese. He became heavily reactive to other dogs making it difficult to walk or take him anywhere. We had worked with 6 other trainers coming to K9 Nitro with things only getting worse. In fact one trainer suggested we put our dog on Prozac, which us and our vet were appalled by the recommendation as our dog is not a case for Prozac. We travel with our animals and don’t want to stop because of reactivity. With this training we have seen improvements and have the tools to work through reactions. We will be continuing maintenance sessions and work towards off leash reliability.

We just completed seven sessions with Nitro K-9, along with a four-day board and train. Nitro K-9 was recommended to us by two other Samoyed owners, and I can’t express how much of a relief it’s been to find this place. We were at our wits’ end with our one-year-old Samoyed, Nali. After investing so much time with several trainers, we still saw no progress. Nali would constantly bark to demand attention, jump on everyone and everything, and had developed excitement-based reactivity, so she would lunge and bark at other dogs on walks like a maniac. Steve can tell you all about how we first walked through the doors—I could barely control Nali with her barking, pulling, and frantic behavior, paying me zero attention. It was embarrassing. Anyone who saw her then would never have believed we’d spent hours upon hours each week trying to train her. Things immediately took a turn for the better when we found Nitro. I’ll be the first to admit that I was very hesitant to use a prong collar or e-collar. People in our circles had been suggesting them for months, but I refused to even open my mind to the idea. However, nothing else was working, so I decided to at least learn more about them. Within our first session, I realized much of my hesitation was misinformed, and I hadn’t understood how these tools are intended to be used—not to harm the dog, but to communicate clearly. Nitro introduced these tools with such care, technique, and attention to detail. I would have stopped immediately if I felt Nali was being mistreated, but that never happened. Learning how to use these tools has allowed us to communicate and build a relationship with our dog that has completely changed both our lives and hers for the better. Watching Steve handle Nali for the first time, I was in disbelief—she was not the same dog. The trainers are so dedicated to these dogs and love them deeply. Even with all her sass, Nali adored each trainer she worked with. She learned to heel, stay, focus on us (the best thing ever!), and much more. Through these training exercises, Nitro supported us in building a positive relationship with Nali, one that’s based on clear communication, boundaries, and love. Now, Nali is a much calmer, happier, and less anxious dog, and we are much calmer, happier, and less anxious people. :) She has made incredible progress over the past few months, and we hope to come back for more sessions soon to continue building on her success. Long story short: I can't recommend Nitro-K9 enough.

Absolutely top-notch dog training. Steve and his colleagues taught us that training our dog to ignore distractions actually calms her down, because she learns that it's not her job to protect us from everything that might be out there. Our dog didn't respond very well to previous treat-based training because she just isn't food-motivated. Now we can take her for a walk without her running every which way and being totally unpredictable about which dogs she would ignore and which she would bark at -- she ignores almost all of them now.

The Nitro K9 team has been an absolute game-changer for our dog training. We mainly worked with Steve and Haddyn, both of whom were instrumental in understanding our dog's unique training needs and style and creating training personalized to the dog and the human. As a little puppy, we started with a lot of positive, food-based training, which for that time in development, created a pretty good puppy. As he continued to develop (read: get smarter, express more of his herding dog traits, and get a little defiant), we realized that he needed a deeper level of training, but were unsure what course to follow. If you have ever found that your dog does not want to listen to you, even if you have treats, because he or she is more interested or fixated on something else - squirrels, other dogs, etc. - then you are in the same place we were. This is where Steve, Haddyn, and the Nitro K9 team came in. They promote an effective style of training that emphasizes our bond with the dog instead of with food, and create the structure of positive praise and rewards for good behavior coupled with the guardrails of correcting negative behaviors. There, we focused on service dog training, starting with basic handling and expanding to tasking. They showed us how to identify different signals our dog was sending us and how to listen to his queues on a deeper level. We developed an excellent heel (both on and off-leash) and many other handling commands, progressing to proper behavior in public settings (like restaurants and airports), to PSD tasking. Nitro K9 even helped us conquer a bout of leash reactivity during a developmental period around turning 1 year old. They also provide instructions for the human on how to properly use our tools - leashes, e-collars, etc. We also met many other dedicated owners and great dogs going through their own programs. We even met up with some outside of class to keep up our training during the week. I must say that no dog training will work with just one class a week, but the Nitro K9 team were excellent at telling us what our homework for the week was so we could maintain progress. The Nitro K9 team have helped us develop a deep bond with our dog to the extent I can not imagine not being able to communicate with our dog. I guess the biggest testimonial is the consistent praise for our dog's behavior we get from family and friends, who all remark at how well behaved he is, even compared to their own dogs!