Bark Busters Reviews

What Bark Busters clients have to say about our dog training services

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Anonymous
14 years ago — Chicago, Illinois

In August, on a very hot summer day, I think it was around 95 degrees, I was taking out the garbage in the alley. I heard a dog crying a couple of houses down and investigated where it was coming from, and found a crate with a very cute dog inside. This was the same kind of crate used to transport animals on a plane. At first blush, I thought the owner was inside the house and would take the dog in after dropping off her luggage. About a half hour went by and I had this gnawing feeling about the dog in the crate. I came back outside and saw one of our neighbors and asked if she knew anything about the dog. The neighbor did not know, but said the dog was there for about 2 hours. I then peered into the crate and saw that the dog was very mangy, very matted looking and there was a foul order coming from it. I opened the crate and the dog ran out and away. I chased after this dog for over an hour, and then gave up. As I was walking back home, our neighbor corralled the dog in her yard and gave him to me. My husband Danny and I found the dog in very bad shape. The smell was coming from its ears that were bulging out like cauliflower. As we went to look deeper in its ears, it turned around and bit me. Immediately, we took the dog and ran to the vet where the dog was quarantined for 2 weeks. He also had severe ear trauma, fleas, well, you name it - the bottom line is that dog was neglected and put out in 95 degree weather to die. We visited the dog at the vet and we decided to keep him. We named him Ollie. For a couple of weeks back in our house he was great. We have another dog and they seemed to get along just fine. Then, one day, as we were putting drops in his ears, he turned around and bit me again. This occurred a couple of times, but the last time, it was pretty bad. Now we had to decide if we were going to keep Ollie or if we were going to take him to a shelter. As we were thinking about the shelter, we felt that it would not be right to give him up to one since he had bitten me a few times and he was now hard of hearing because of the damage done to his ears. So, now we're thinking we had to put him down or get help. We contacted our vet and he recommended that we call Bark Busters. Marlene and Howard came to our home and we immediately saw that the techniques and their knowledge of dog behaviors were the best fit for us. After one lesson, Ollie showed great improvement. Marlene and Howard showed us how to communicate with him without using any shock collars, prong collars, or electronic collars. Rather, they showed us how to be a leader in the household by using training exercises coupled with voice tones and body language. These exercises have helped us to now have a trust and bond with Ollie. We know we have a way to go, but we are on the right path and we have laid the foundation to be part of our household pack. We highly recommend Marlene and Howard Marks and Bark Busters as trainers and to help fix unwanted behaviors with your dog. We did, and we did not have to euthanize Ollie.