Urban Pawsibilities - Dog & Puppy Training Classes in SE Portland

I had a wonderful experience doing 1:1 separation training with Emma! Emma has a gift for understanding a dog's underlying motivations, and leveraging those motivations to get good results. My story: I unexpectedly inherited Benny, a senior dog. Benny had never gone through any training since he’d been adopted at age 4 by a family member... and we didn't know if he had any training before that. So when he came to me, Benny had long-standing separation anxiety that caused destructive behavior. Emma and I did monthly 1:1 training on Zoom for almost two years. Yes, I said two years! That's what it took to undo ~10 years of learned behavior and get this senior dog comfortable with separation and some confinement. It was a huge challenge to train a senior dog bred for companionship, but Emma was always supportive, tenacious, and optimistic. More than I could say for myself at times! Over those two years, Benny went from pacing and barking as soon as everyone left the house to being able to chill in the living room by himself for two hours. Although Benny has since passed away, I know that thanks to Emma, he learned and evolved so much in the last two years of his life. I actually miss doing the training because although it takes dedication and persistence from the owner, I learned so much and had fun too! When I get another dog someday, I will 100% be back to Urban Pawsibilities to take their group classes and do things right from the start. Thank you, Emma, for everything-- I know Benny is looking down on us separation anxiety-free! 🕊🐾

Have had a great experience with Come Dog and Walkin' Dog classes here (both taught by Emma). Our dog is 65lb of pure puppy energy and we were not sure if he'd be able to make it through a whole hour being so close to other dogs without being able to play with them (his only desire in life is to wrestle every dog he sees). Emma did a great job setting up the space to minimize distractions and got him to the point where he pays attention to us even with other dogs nearby. All the games and skills we learned in class have really translated into better behaviour and self control everywhere. Going on walks is 1000% more fun, he's able to sit calmly when dogs walk by us, and his recall is pretty darn good too. Going to classes together really helped me and my partner get on the same page with training. Instead of both of us watching a bunch of random Youtube videos and taking different approaches we now all know the same cues and rewards and our dog isn't getting mixed messages from us. Totally worth the cost.