The Dog's Listener

We had a problem with my Rottweiler/German Shepherd, Bella, after I got married and my husband moved in. Bella started growling and baring her teeth at me. She wanted to be near my husband but would physically move away from me when I tried to get near her. This was very hard for me to see because I had had her since she was a puppy. I was also concerned that, left unchecked, the situation would escalate. John had not heard of this type of situation before, but was intrigued and willing to come work with us. I was worried that Bella would not growl around John, but he assured me that there were other things we could work on, even if she did not display the behavior. John asked many questions to understand Bella’s history with my new husband and me. We started by all going for a walk. At first, I wasn’t sure why we were walking when the problem was with Bella growling, but John helped me see how her behaviors were all connected. Back at the house, he showed me some techniques that I could use with Bella when she growled at me. He watched me try them with her to make sure that I was doing them correctly. Not once did John use a technique that I was uncomfortable with. John spent a lot of time with us and made sure that all of our questions were answered. He was very knowledgeable about dogs and clearly loves what he does. Since working with John, Bella has growled at me twice. Each time, my husband and I have used the techniques that we learned and she stopped immediately and seemed very sorry for what she had done. She is now totally back to her old loving self. John has checked in with me numerous times via text to see how Bella is doing. He has been prompt and very responsive to all of my questions. I am so grateful that we worked with John.

Jon did a great job with our 2 year old Female black lab, Finley. She used to bark at everything and jump up on everyone. On walks, she would pull on the leash so hard that she would choke herself and start coughing. We gave up on taking her on walks, but now, she walks perfectly, and doesn't jump up on people. She also stopped barking at everyone and everything because Jon taught us how to show her that we are in charge and so she doesn't have to worry about potential threats anymore. I would say that the only issues that Finley still has are because of a lack of consistency in training the way Jon taught us to on our part. I highly reccomend. I see some people say that he trails of on long rants during sessions, as he did some with us, but he also just loves his job and working with dogs and people, and he knocked about 45 minutes off of our bill because of it.

Unfortunately I did not have a good experience at all. He was 20 minutes late to the appointment. My dog has severe separation anxiety and I wanted to help her and be able to quit medicating her for it. After our visit with John, which was over 3 hours long and almost $300, she learned how to properly walk on a leash and not jump on people. During our appointment he would start trailing off on irrelevant stories for 20+ minutes (which of course, I got charged for the time regardless.) He told me to continue all of the things he taught me and her anxiety would be gone in 2-3 weeks. It has been a month and she is worse. I called him and explained the situation and I got excuses and he told me that maybe he guessed a little wrong and it should be 2-3 months not weeks.. That's a huge difference!!! I was very upset but continued all the training with her.. only for things to get even worse. At this point I am back to medicating her so she does not hurt herself and have spent $290 and 3 hours of my time that I will never get back.. for nothing. Very very disappointed. The only positive thing I have to say, is he would explain why (psychologically) he was doing something a certain way with her.

He arrived at our house at around 6 in the evening and ended up staying till nearly midnight, charging my parents for almost all of that time. He did teach us some very interesting and useful tips on how to train our dog, but the issue that we contacted him about did not get resolved. In fact my dog became aggressive towards me as well as continuing to bark at everything. I would recommend him for aggressive dogs as that seems to be where his strength lies, but for your average dog, I would first try other options unless you have a couple hundred and a lot of free time.