San Diego Pet Training

This review is for the 4-week Basic Obedience Training group class for $170. If you're wondering what that class is like and if it's worth the money, you need to read this entire review. First I'll start with the positive. Rob is an amazing dog expert and a very kind man, as many have said before. He answered every question I had and met every request. He is incredibly respectful and punctual and he's a true professional. So why only 3 stars? It's all because of the course's value. The class was held once a week for 4 weeks. Each week was only 1 hour long and during the first 30 minutes of every class, the dogs (there were usually 5-7 dogs) had a chance to socialize by running around off-leash in the gated area chasing each other. That was cool and fun to watch. However, Rob split the dogs into 2 groups (bigger dogs and smaller dogs), only allowing each group to play in the training field one at a time. This means that for 15 minutes, all of us at some point had to stand outside of the gate watching the other dogs play. This happened every week, meaning out of 4 hours of total instruction, 1 hour was spent literally standing idle. There were three other empty training fields that I thought he could've let the other group use simultaneously. I'm sure Rob has his reasons why he doesn't allow that, but in my opinion, this was time and money wasted. The next thing we didn't like was that every week the lessons were exactly the same. For 15 minutes, everyone rotated through stations for sit, stay, come, and lay down. In the last 15 minutes, we practiced heel by walking our dogs in a large circle. This was the entire curriculum each week. I understand repetition is key for dog training. However, the lessons weren't progressive, as in he didn't give new tips or make it more challenging as the weeks went on. Overall, I felt this was somewhat lazy on Rob's part and perhaps it's time he re-evaluates his curriculum. The last thing we didn't like is that we surprisingly received very little to no hands-on help from Rob. For example, during two classes, Rob literally stood under the gazebo as he watched everyone rotate through the stations. He spoke through the megaphone to give advice, but it was all from a distance. Seldom did he help us individually or show us what we were doing wrong or right. Sometimes, he walked away in the middle of class to go to his car or do something. With only 20-30 minutes of actual training taking place, not only was this unfair but the class occasionally became unorganized. I'm not saying Rob doesn't care anymore, but I got the feeling that because he's been doing this for so long, maybe a little complacency has set in. One really important thing you should know is that Rob has a set of online videos that are included with this course. Had I not had access to Rob's videos, I definitely would've felt ripped off. They allowed us to practice and retain the info during the week, and they go into more depth than the in-person class. Surprisingly I felt this is where we got the most value. Before we signed up for this class, we were wondering if it was going to be worth it. In some ways, it was worth it, because dogs can't learn how to socialize without actually being around other dogs in a safe environment. But in more ways, it wasn't worth it. I felt that there too much wasted time during the 30 minutes of socialization, that the class structure was too repetitive, and that Rob didn't give everyone his full attention during the formal training. Additionally, we needed the videos to supplement the in-person training and then again, there are plenty of good YouTube videos for free that teach the same thing that Rob teaches. Yes, my dog learned down and stay from Rob's class (he already knew come and sit) but that was only because we practiced at home A LOT since we wanted to get the most out of the class. And maybe that's the beauty of paying $170?

We had Rob come over for a private at home training to really help us correct and train very specific behaviors we wanted to change for our two dogs. We've done regular obedience training with Petco before but its just not the same with at home training. With at home training, we were really able to address specific behaviors that'd be hard to replicate elsewhere. We loved our experience with Rob, he started training literally the moment he stepped into the house with our dog's jumping on guest behavior and we saw instantaneous change in behavior! Our little puppy likes to tug a lot on walks to get next to our other dog, and Rob asked if we were comfortable trying out a prong collar explaining to us the right way to wear and use without endangering our dog in any way. I was a little uneasy about the prong collar, but he assured me that when used properly its very safe and its meant to be a temporary training tool that we can eventually ease off of. I'm sure he has other methods if you're not comfortable with it as well! We loved working with Rob so much, we're looking to enroll our dogs in his agility training courses! Highly recommend!