The K9 Coach

My dog just finished up her training with Johanna and I feel so compelled to leave a review. If you are debating on wether or not to choose The K9 Coach for your dog’s training needs, DO IT! I never imagined I could be this impressed and happy with a dog training program. Johanna seriously knows what she’s doing. My experience with my dog’s training has been nothing short of life changing. I’m truly just shocked at all the improvement my dog has made. I never knew that my goals for my dog were obtainable to the extent that we have met. I have had several moments where I felt emotional seeing my dog listen, understand, and obeying what is being asked of her. This is honestly the best thing you can do…not only for your dog, but also for yourself. I encourage everyone with a dog to be willing to put in the time and consistency needed for training. Reach out to Johanna, I cannot recommend her enough.

We took our puppy here a few months ago and I’ve felt the need to write a review ever since. My puppy is a very aware and sensitive boy, who can be a little full of himself sometimes and had a jumping concern when we brought him in. We are first-time pet owners and weren’t aware enough about different training techniques before we signed up. He’s our baby and serves as our ESA. There wasn’t much time for talking, and I didn’t feel that our needs, desires, or our full situation were understood before she started working with our dog (using physical force, loud voice, etc). It all moved so fast we hardly had time to ask questions. Okay It isn’t very clear from the website that Johanna teaches physical discipline (kneeing your dog, forcing them down with the leash, etc) and suggests methods like withholding some of their food so they will be hungry for treats and want to behave. She teaches e-collar methods, and put our puppy in an intentionally stressful situation to learn which level of the e-collar would “drop” him. (His cry was the worst sound I’ve ever heard in my life.) We signed up for the 6-week private class but stopped after one. We took our boy home and he was unrecognizable. The life in his eyes was gone. I tried to pet him and he cowered. He was well-behaved, but at a very steep cost. He was truly afraid of us. We finally “got him back” a few weeks after stopping his training, but he developed an attitude that wasn’t there before that we’re still working on. I wanted to post a review because this training method isn’t for every dog. If you have a sweet, sensitive, and very aware family dog who has some bad habits, I strongly suggest asking a lot of questions before attending a session, or look elsewhere. I could see this method potentially being useful on “very, very bad/mean” dogs or dogs that are meant to be very strictly behaved like a professional guard dog/police dog. I don’t think it’s a good option for sweet family dogs like mine. I added a star because Johanna did want to see our dog asap after we reached out to tell her he wasn’t doing well. (We didn’t want to re-traumatize him by bringing him back to the location and declined the offer.)