Reviews

Alex has been amazing to work with for our problem child! After a biting incident, we were grappling with the decision of if our dog was simply too violent and needed to be put down or seek help from a training professional. I am so glad that we didn’t give up on our boy and reached out to Alex for help. Our dog was simply too aggressive to strangers that came to our house, and Alex had it pegged within the first meeting with him. Our dog went from lunging and barking aggressively at the first meeting with Alex to calm and relaxed in seconds. I know this may not be the case with all dogs, but the fact Alex nailed it that quickly on encouraged us to further work with him and trust his process. We are extremely grateful that we did! As if all of that was not amazing enough, he is also by far and away the most reasonable trainer we have encountered in the area. Alex is on our speed dial for any future dog training expertise we may need here in the Salisbury area. He really does care about what is best for the dog. I can truly say he saved our dog’s life! 100000% recommend!

I boarded my puppy for two weeks using a board and train program with Alex. We had done a lot of basic training with him. He began lapsing with recall and some other things just bullying and finding ways to push his weight around, push boundaries as a teenage 70 pound tank . Fortunately all in all my pups really a very good dog. He just needed reinforcement that I was unable to give him because of physical problems on my end. It ended up being impossible for me to walk him on leash. He was still being off leash walked until the snow and ice. He is just so strong and so strong my back is blown. All of this was taking its toll on my household and snow and ice which further limited what I had the ability to do anything more with him ( he also has aversion to cars, I couldn’t even get him in if I needed to).

So finding a trainer… I did not want someone who was food based training. I didn’t want someone “fear free “ or “ purely positive “ because life is neither. Actions have consequences. I had been using an e-collar to work with him off leash. I did not want someone who is used straight up dominance as a solution to problems that didn’t really require nor do I believe in dominance based training. I also didn’t want a strict regime that would ultimately be unrealistic for our chaotic lives . For this reason I interviewed several trainers. Alex really seemed to be the right choice for my pup.

Well, he excelled. He came home Friday and it’s much calmer he has more confidence. It’s far less chaotic, everything Alex did with him worked in a way I was comfortable with. He is coming on command first thing off leash, waiting at the door not rushing it, We’ve done a couple small car rides. He’s done OK the car issue is because he gets carsick and at least he’ll hop in and out of the car now, he stopped rushing doors, all like the little things that were really important for life. He waits to be told it’s OK to go out an outside door .

The follow ups really important so I’m trying to work on all the little things that I can. I did do some loose leash walking with him. He did so well!! Car and not one effort to pull. That’s pretty hard for a younger dog ( it’s hard to look at him and think puppy because he is so large he’s only about 8 months old). I can’t risk falling at all so I’m really proud of him and I’m really glad that I chose Alex because he had the right balance to me. He is a balanced trainer . The E collar ( I’m not sure how much he uses them ) I never asked. doesn’t rely on it solely for training uses positive reinforcement play, especially important with a puppy. He really found the right way to communicate with my pup, which was so important to me. It’s easy to ruin a dog with poor training methods or just fall apart because lacking reinforcement at home I’ve seen it. I used to work in the dog industry for 40 years as a groomer not a trainer so I’ve seen it all and I’ve referred people to trainers that had issues with their dogs, but I moved back to Maine and these options were too far away from me so it really was starting from scratch and trying to make a new connection. I’m going to need follow up training with him working on specific tasks and Alex is gonna be the way to go moving forward on the additional work, but everything went smooth as can be. I got video updates. He always answered my questions. I tried hard not to torment him because I missed my baby boy so much so thank you Alex. You did such a fantastic job of course will be in touch soon with some follow up visits and reinforcing what we need to reinforce maybe adding some new things in here and there .

Do your pup and yourself a favor at least give Alex a call. Talk over what’s going on with your dog. See if you can find a program that will work for you see if you guys connect to find somebody with balance that doesn’t sway too far from one end of the field to another is difficult but so important to me and yeah, I really found the right trainer.