The Dog Wizard Nashville

Highly recommend the Nashville Dog Wizard. We did the two week “easy does it” program as my husband and I are very busy and unable to commit to frequent appointment times. Our dog was a rescue with no impulse control and aggression. He now knows sit, stay, come, place, and off. He is doing so great and we are so happy! Tate was so informative, patient, and confident with our dog. Gretchen was amazing, informative and patient as well! We love the dog wizard and will be bringing our second rescue through the same program!

I definitely think if you have a dog without behavioral issues, it is 100% worth the investment. Our dog was a rescue and has fear aggression. Unfortunately training did not help with the behavioral aspect in the long term, despite our best efforts. He learned all the basic commands quite quickly and excelled in his lessons, however his training goes out the window when he is triggered in an uncontrolled environment (walks, unexpected company, vet visit, etc).If you don’t know your dog very well and they have a history of aggression or biting, I’d take this into consideration. We ended up removing the e-collar after training which definitely helped with aggression and I think a behavioral, hands on approach would have been more effective. I say this because his aggression was worse after training and using the collar would get him more worked up. Important to point out E-collars are not exclusively used, this decision was made because he bit the trainer when they met and eventually they became buds! The only thing suggestion I have that would have made this a 5/5 would be to take the approach of getting to the root of the behavior issue if one exists. I don’t doubt he would he would have come out of this knowing his commands in all situations if the behavioral issues were removed. The option to add lessons, free classes on Saturdays, and flexibility of your schedule & where to meet are all great aspects of the training program we chose.

We recently completed one-on-one puppy training with Tate, and we would highly recommend both The Dog Wizard as a company and Tate as a trainer! Our miniature dachshund was completely untrained when we started, and she is now great with the basic commands. Before our first session, our puppy refused to go on walks, but after just one session with Tate, she quickly learned to walk with us and stay right on our heel. If you are trying to decide between paying for professional training and doing it yourself (as we were), I would really suggest taking the plunge with The Dog Wizard. Leaning the steps of how to train a dog can likely be learned from a book or online videos, but there is no substitute for watching a professional work directly with your dog (especially seeing how they react when things go wrong). It’s a small price to pay for years of having a well-trained, well-behaved dog, and we are so glad we did it.

It turns out you CAN teach an old dog new tricks!! We enrolled our 7-year-old beagle-cocker in The Dog Wizard's "Freedom" training package (a series of private lessons at our home, which also includes ongoing group support sessions). It has been worth every penny and we wish we would have done this years ago! Kendall, along with Gretchen, from The Dog Wizard, was awesome to work with, as was their office staff. They worked with our schedule to schedule sessions at our home so we could work with our dog in the setting where the problematic behaviors were occurring. One thing I love about Kendall's approach is that he has many different techniques to draw on, until he finds approaches that work for the individual dog. We are ecstatic with the results! Using the techniques Kendall taught us has dramatically reduced our anxiety-prone dog's problematic behaviors, and made him a much happier and better-adjusted dog. We are much better able to manage interactions with other dogs in our neighborhood and we are able to more easily entertain guests in our home. Best of all, over the holidays, instead of boarding our dog as we have had to do in the past due to his aggressive behavior towards family members and guests, our entire family, our dog included, was able to enjoy the holidays all together in our home! I'm so grateful that our vet recommended The Dog Wizard! The training Kendall and Gretchen provided has not only improved Jack’s quality of life, but our whole family’s as well.