The Dog Wizard Nashville

I've been a dog sitter for several years now and I flew into Nashville to take care of Kylo. He has a lot of energy and unfortunately, I wasn't able to take him on walks because he doesn't do well on lead. I exercised him by playing fetch in the backyard. His owner's told me about how they invested time and money to send him here for some training. Unfortunately it sounds like this did not work for him and the owner has been unresponsive and when he does respond, he flips the situation to make it seem like it's the dog owner's fault for lack of follow through however, I've been shown the several attempts on the dog owner's part to move forward with resolution to no avail from this business owner. This is such an unfortunate situation and I hope people are aware of these issues so that they can be mindful regarding if they want to pursue business with this company.

Jessie is an exceptional trainer! She worked with my toy poodle, Sister, through private lessons and a recent board-and train program. Sister had a tough start-limited exposure to the outside world during her first 8 months and a strong willed personality. We struggled with impulsive biting and intense reactions to other dogs during walks. After working with Jessie, Sister returned home noticeably more confident and calm, especially on walks. Jessie’s patience, creativity, and genuine care made all the difference. She truly understood my pup and tailored her approach with love and expertise. I couldn’t recommend her more highly!

This is my attempt to keep my story brief for the sake of highlighting the main pain points we experienced with The Dog Wizard in hopes to save anyone and their dog from going through what we did. TLDR: 3 week board and train was not successful. Our dog came home in distress and with kennel sores and none of the skills that were mentioned in the contract. Lack of communication from trainer and Scott during and after the program. Promise of group support classes not fulfilled. We have a high energy 7 year old German Shorthaired Pointer who is anxious and acts out aggressively sporadically towards other dogs and humans (mainly due to resource guarding). He is extremely smart and I've trained him on my own to do basic tricks. He does well off leash, but is essentially a bull in a China shop when on a leash. We paid $5100 for a 21 day board and train program with The Dog Wizard. Scott and trainer made us feel like their program would do wonders for our dog and help him to build confidence which would help with the reactivity and other behavioral issues. Not only did we receive this reassurance verbally, but the contract we signed states that the program teaches "Loose Leash Walking, Place, Sit, Down, Come, How to work through distractions, Address moderate behavioral problems: jumping, barking, reactivity, etc". We received minimal communication while our dog was boarded. We were promised daily updates, but in reality only received 3 pictures and one video the entire 3 week stay. I had to be the one reach out first for 90% of the communication we received. Upon pick up, we received a sub par walk through of how to work the e-collar and a "demonstration" of what our dog had learned, which was visibly nothing without being corrected with the e-collar. We also noticed large sores on his feet that were brushed away as nervous biting/licking sores. We gave our dog a bath right away when we got home and he was in clear distress. Clumps of hair falling out and kennel sores on his elbows and side legs. He also had abrasions on his neck from a rope cinch collar that was used. We were rightfully extremely upset at the condition in which we received our dog and even after a few days of letting him calm down from his stay, he still was not showing any signs of new skills learned. We have worked with him daily for at least an hour with the instruction that we were given and still are not able to walk with him comfortably loose leash. He does not know the "place" command at all. Still counter surfing and growls when others come near him while he's eating. I waited a week to calm down before reaching out to Scott, but in that week I heard nothing from him or the trainer. I still had not received even a check in, so I sent an email with our grievances and asked for a partial refund. All things considered, I felt this was very fair. Since then, we have been offered private lessons or a refund substantially less than what we had asked for. We came back with more questions regarding the offers and instead of the questions being answered we've been met with unanswered emails and texts and attempts to gaslight us into feeling like this is our fault. We had agreed to move forward with private lessons multiple times and were ghosted when we asked about getting the first session scheduled and how many lessons this would entail. The package that we already paid for is also supposed to come with lifetime support of group classes which I have asked about multiple times and have not received information on how to attend them. We are left completely burned of the $5100 we paid and still in the same spot as we were with our dog. This could have been a much different experience had we been notified of the first signs of distress from our dog. The complete lack of effort to communicate and accountability is astonishing. Our friends who recommended The Dog Wizard say that say that this is absolutely not what the company used to be; they will not be recommending Dog Wizard anymore, and neither can we.