Positive Paws LLC

Every dog owner should be working with Carla and Positive Paws. It’s this simple: if you practice what Carla teaches you, you will solve whatever problems you are having with your dog and both of you will have a better quality of life. The positive techniques she uses work and the changes last. Carla knows how best to address every situation, including obedience, house manners, anxiety, reactivity, and interactions with other dogs, pets, and people. She uses 100% positive reinforcement techniques to train. These techniques not only work, they are essential, especially for an anxious dog like mine. Many times, poor behavior is rooted in fear, as is the case with my dog. Carla can always see when his behavior is caused by fear and knows how to condition him and manage his environment to alleviate his fear and improve his behavior. She knows how to address every situation I encounter in a no-nonsense, straightforward way. She can read his body language (and that of the dogs around him) with skill that amazes me every time. Furthermore, when I have needed other specialists to work with my dog outside the realm of training, she was able to connect me with her vast network of vetted resources. Now that Carla is doing virtual training, you have no excuse not to give her a call. Everything she does will be customized to the particulars of your dog, not “one size fits all”. There is no doubt in my mind that Carla Whitaker is the best trainer in the Cincinnati region.

I just finished a consultation and was very impressed with Carla. She is very very organized, and knowledgable. She had us fill out a questionnaire and asked us some additional background information initially. In short, I have a rescue dog who occasionally urinates in the house. This is a learned behavior that happened under the original two owners. We suspected anxiety is the cause, and she came to the same conclusion on her own very quickly. What exactly triggers it though is the big question. So short of monitoring or videotaping the dog 24/7, she gave us at least 10 different things that we need to do to attempt to correct the poor behavior. As I already knew, this would come down to us consistently doing what we needed to do in order to get the desired change we need. Carla was very upfront and honest in telling us that even after doing all of this for a year we still may, or may not see the desired change. Again, as I figured, it is like everything else in life; the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. None the less, I now have several new things to implement that I had no idea I should be doing, and of course I have a list of things that I need to stop doing as they have been counter-productive. How successful this all turns out to be is up to us, but at least I now have tactics which may actually give us (and the dog) a chance. I would highly recommend you go see Carla at Positive Paws for any behavioral training needs!