Hi there, just wanted to send a quick line to thank you for helping me be more successful with my dogs!
I bought your 5 DVD set and was immediately drawn in by how simple you made the process of introducing and using the ecollar and was blown away by how easily my dogs took to it and how big of a difference the training has made from day one of doing it.
I have two Aussie cattle dogs who have been the most challenging dogs training-wise that I’ve ever had. They were already reactive when we got them from the shelter at 8 months old and the reactivity has been our biggest hurdle. Leash skills have also been a big challenge despite working on it constantly with marker/reward training. We saw tiny improvements but walks and hikes were still extremely challenging and stressful. I never felt comfortable taking them for walks by myself because they were so difficult to walk together, so I had to take them one at a time if my partner wasn’t with me.
I went to dog training seminars, watched countless videos from various trainers (force-free and otherwise), and I never gave up searching for whatever it was that I was missing that was keeping my training from being successful, and that one thing turned out to be YOU. Your videos have helped me SO much, and it was so easy and gentle, there have been many times now that I’ve said to myself I wish I had found this so much sooner. I could have fixed all these issues that I’ve dealt with for years in the first 2 weeks of having these dogs had I known how easy it could be!
My dogs have made huge strides in overcoming their reactivity towards other dogs, and I can now walk them together with both leashes in one hand without them pulling. They are more happy and relaxed when out in the world, readily engage with me in distracting environments, and they get to be included in more activities now that they are so much easier to handle. I no longer keep my head on a swivel scanning for other dogs when we’re in town, and we have started off-leash hikes with them dragging long lines, with the goal to be fully off-leash eventually. We still have stuff to work on but the improvement we’ve had in a comparatively short amount of time has been so encouraging. They are happy and so am I, and we did it just as you said in your introduction – without compromising their mental health or my relationship with them. There was no scary or painful corrections, we’ve done it all while staying at very low levels of stim and using rewards to reinforce behaviors. Even just the simple act of slowing down and working through stuff when it comes up, and recognizing valuable teaching moments and embracing those as training sessions rather than avoiding those situations has been so valuable. I wish everyone who has a negative impression of remote collars could see you in action to see how gentle it is and how well the dogs respond.
My dogs and I are now in a new chapter of our lives together and there’s just no words to adequately express how grateful I am that you took the time to produce those videos (and not to mention offer them at such an affordable price). I’m so happy that I found your videos and I will recommend them to anyone every chance I get! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Sincerely,
Allison, Max, and Chase
