St Paul Dog Training Club

I'm currently training a second dog at SPDTC and am completely satisfied. I've never had an issue with being mistreated or disrespected, nor has my dog ever been mishandled. I have politely refused certain training techniques I disagree with, but have received tons of personalized help. The daytime Novice and Open walk-in classes are usually not very crowded, so we each get a lot of help. I pay for a block of 10 classes ($90) which need to be used within 6 months, but can apply to any of the classes above Intermediate. I often spend about 3 hours in ne day working with my dog in Open (retrieves, jumping, advanced heeling and recalls), Novice (polishing heeling and fronts & finishes), then start work on the Utility exercises. Three levels of work for about $10! I highly recommend working with several training facilities to expose your dogs to many situations and approaches. Two other good venues are Tails Up in Burnsville, and Bloomington Obedience Training Club in Bloomington.

Puppy Einstein class was fun and very helpful. The participants were people who loved their puppies and wanted them to have a good start and there was a variety of mixed and pure bred puppies in class. The instructor, Amber, really had good tips for behavior issues and educated us in characteristics and challenges of behaviors of different breeds. She reassured us that sometimes we would get frustrated and that was normal. She never made anybody in the class feel like they were doing poorly (I read this in other reviews about some instructors in this club). The instructor observed each puppy and helped the owners work effectively with that pup. Registration was easy. The only negative experience was a very crabby lady at the front desk the first night, but that was the only time we interacted with her.

If you truly care for your dog, seek training elsewhere. Please read. I brought my six month old German Shepherd here for beginner obedience training and on the second week I heard the old woman trainer (I cannot remember her name) say she does not like German Shepherds and on the fourth week she told me herself she really doesn't know anything about shepherds so training them is difficult for her. I also witnessed a trainer hit another German Shepherd in the face because he "thought the dog was going to bite him" (the dog did not try to bite him, the trainer just wasn't paying attention). I'm not sure if people here have something against shepherds in general, or if that was a coincidence. When teaching my dog how to lay down, one trainer told me to step on the leash to force the dog's head to the floor. When I tried this, my dog completely panicked and started flailing his body around so I let go. THREE of the dog trainers working came over to try for themselves and none of them could get him to lay down by stepping on the leash. They eventually gave up and told me to just practice it at home. I ended up teaching him how to lay down a completely different way without forcing his head to the floor by stepping on his leash. Still, we completed beginner obedience and moved on to intermediate. On the first night of intermediate, my dog sat up early during the lay-down-stay. John told me I had to force my dog to lay down by stepping on the leash and forcing my dog's head to the floor. I told him that it doesn't work with my dog, as we all learned in the beginner class. He ignored me and brought my dog and me to the front of the group to show everyone how to make a dog lay down. He stepped on the leash to force my dog's head to the floor and my dog immediately started flailing around as he was getting strangled. My dog made awful noises that I have never heard and was foaming out the mouth as he couldn't breathe. I was completely terrified for my dog's safety. I thought John was going to break my dog's neck or he was going to pass out from lack of oxygen. He held him down long enough that my dog went silent because he didn't have a breath left. I had to tell John to stop at which point my dog collapsed by me still chocking because John managed to pull his choke collar so tight that it was still wrapped tight around his neck even after he finally let go and I had to rip it out of his neck myself. I cried right there in front of everyone because I couldn't believe I just paid someone to strangle my dog. I can't help but to think what could've happened if there weren't other people around or if I wasn't there to tell him to stop. John did not apologize. He believes he did nothing wrong. He told me it was my fault because "my dog is too used to being loved". I had people come up to me afterwards who saw what happened and told me they would be pissed too if someone did that to their dog (one guy said John should've been punched in the face and a woman said I should turn this into a legal matter and get him fired), so at least I'm not the only one who knows this was wrong. John kept saying to me "I hope you still come back after this incident, don't give up on training." I will never return to this place. I'm not giving up on training, I will be continuing elsewhere in a much more humane approach.

These people are absolutely nuts! They have nazi-like senior citizens running around yelling at owners if they're not keeping up. Very unprofessional. We went 6 out of 10 weeks and decided to call it quits after I was publicly humiliated by the trainer. Then on the other side, there's dogs doing nose work. Kinda comical because their owners have their noses up in the air like they're training too.