The Trusted Companion

Rosie was brought to the Floyd County Humane Society as a stray. She was extremely aggressive towards other animals and very reactive to everything in the outside environment. She absolutely loved people though and needed somebody to help her. Brant agreed to work with Rosie to help her overcome her issues and find a home. Brant took her for three weeks (which turned into five when the Humane Society ran into issues and could not take her back at the scheduled time). Brant posted videos of her progress and it was amazing. One of the last video's showed Rosie walking off leash at the JMU Campus. It was unbelievable to see her like this. Brant has an incredible knowledge of dogs and uses play therapy to train them. The difference for Rosie was life saving. She is a different dog. We watched her progress through videos Brant posted and when we were able to, we adopted her. When we went to pick her up Brant took time to explain his methods to us and worked with us on commands and corrections until we felt comfortable. His support did not end when we left with her. He has been available to answer our questions as they arise and supports us as we learn how to continue to help Rosie along her amazing journey. We are so grateful to Brant for believing in Rosie and taking the time to help her.

You will not be disappointed when you chose Brant @ The Trusted Companion to train your dog. Brant has helped me train 2 dogs now. With my first dog I tried a different dog trainer but it just didn't work out for us and my dog still needed some fine tuning - I found myself searching for another trainer and I came upon Brant - we did some in-person lessons and my dog is such a great dog, and extremely well behaved. In fact, we constantly receive compliments about our dog from visitors, when we take him out in public, or when we go on trips. When I adopted a second dog in July of 2021 from the SPCA, I immediately reached out to Brant - this time I chose to send the dog through his board and train program - and I will tell you any training you do with Brant is WORTH EVERY PENNY, and he stands behind his work. He is very knowledgeable and understands all aspects of the dog and training - including the psychology. He has gone through some reputable certification courses so you can have confidence that he keeps his skills and knowledge up to date. I also had peace that my dog was in good hands by receiving daily video and photo updates when my second dog went through the board and train program. My second dog had a good bit of anxiety, trust issues, and barely knew any basic commands when I adopted her. It's amazing that after 3 weeks of training, the anxiety has diminished and she is listening to and obeying commands. I even took the dog out to an event recently and she was excellent - she healed on the leash and remained calm in a crowd and around other dogs. Make sure you do your part with a dog as well - Brant really encourages play along with the training, and it makes a world of difference - this is how you bond and build trust with your dog. Thank you for your expertise, Brant!

We can’t recommend Brant and The Trusted Companion enough! Our pup, Louie, grew fast and was stubborn, demanding and a real challenge. Having had dogs my entire life, I thought I knew how to train dogs but all my old methods failed. We worked with another trainer who was great, but Louie didn’t respond to those methods either. We were at wit’s end when Brant was recommended to us. Brant’s approach of combining play with training yielded immediate results. From the first session, Louie responded to Brant and we began a whole new relationship with our pup! Brant taught us and Louie how to communicate and work together. He listens now, is attentive to our direction, more confident and all of us are much happier together! We can tell that Louie understands what we want and wants to please us and responds quickly and well! Brant helped us so much, answered all our questions and we’re so grateful for him! He’s a true dog whisperer!

We took our 8 month old German Shepherd to Brant for the 2 weeks board and train. What he was able to do in that short of a time frame was truly incredible. Sophie came back a different pup in terms of obedience. He sends daily videos and pictures so you can see how your dog is progressing. When we got her back, Brant spent almost 3 hours going over everything with us and practicing the training he had been working on. The cute, goofy pup was still there, but she was suddenly better at listening and our relationship with her completely changed for the better as she was able to understand us better and we were able to understand her better. Leading up to dropping her off, Brant answered copious amounts of emails and questions we had. Usually within 24 hours we would get an email back with an incredibly detailed response to what we thought was an easy question. We 1000% recommend him to anyone looking to get their pup to the next level of training. Thanks, Brant! Note: We had planned to get our pup spayed about 2.5 weeks after getting Sophie back (per planned months in advance). We would recommend having your pup return where you have a good chunk of time free after they return to reinforce the training. We had slight regression while she was recovering because of trying to take it as easy as possible for her. She’s caught back on nicely, but just a small tip.