Bark Busters Walnut Creek, Concord, Pleasanton Reviews

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Jesse T.
3 years ago — Walnut Creek, CA

My family is thrilled with our experience with Dan and the Bark Busters program over the past two months. We recently rescued one year old Maddi - a very independent and spirited black lab mix who we were told spent the majority of her first year as a stray. Maddi likely never lived in a home before, and had no experience being on leash. Maddi is sweetheart at her core, but as she got more comfortable in our home in the first few weeks we started to have some challenges with potty training, bolting, jumping, nipping, chewing, lunging at the cat etc. We do not have experience training a dog with Maddi's background, and knew she would benefit from some professional support to transition to her new life as a family dog. After a lot of research, we decided to try Bark Busters. We could not be happier we did! Dan is a treasure. He is knowledgeable, responsive, easy to communicate with and set appointments, confident as a trainer, patient as a teacher, and very pleasant to work with. Dan came to our first session ready to listen to our experiences with Maddi - he took notes, observed us all together, interacted with Maddi, and quickly identified her as a "front of the pack" dog. He explained some of the tendencies and behaviors that are characteristic to this kind of dog, and it was like a little light bulb went off. We were already on our way to better understanding our pup. We have met with Dan 4 times so far. Dan has provided valuable insights and has demonstrated really helpful exercises during each session that we can practice with Maddi to improve her behaviors and help her understand her new role in our family. We have learned how to become leaders of our pack - to "Bah" effectively, to claim our space, and to utilize praise and simple corrections to help teach Maddi what are acceptable and unacceptable behaviors while preserving her wonderful personality and spirit. We have learned how to support Maddi's leash training, and how to start socializing her with our cat so they can be more tolerant house mates. Maddi showed progress immediately, with significant improvements in her behavior after just the first session. Her progress has steadily continued over the last two months. After each session Dan provides more training exercises that are tailored to our goals, and seeks feedback in between our sessions to see how the exercises are going. Dan has gone above and beyond to make our training run smoothly. He has been flexible when our schedules have changed, and he even made a special trip to our home to bring Maddi a better fitting harness when we were starting our leash training. We are incredibly satisfied with our experiences so far, and are eager to continue our work together. Thank you Dan and Bark Busters!

  • #Barking
  • #Digging
  • #Jumping up
  • #Pulling