“We met Helen at Ellie’s first vet appointment, and decided to bring her to puppy social on Sunday mornings to socialize her. I’d had dogs my whole life, and had trained them (mostly successfully) without taking classes. But after a few months on our own, it was clear we were in over our heads with our new puppy. She was sweet and goofy and loving and a holy terror.Every morning at 6, I would leave for work, and she would bark and whine and claw at the door and windows (while my husband, who goes to bed at 4am, was trying to sleep). During the day, while my husband was working, she would shred everything she could get her mouth on (clothes, wallets, throw rugs, ottomans, love seats…). Every night at 9, she would get a sudden burst of energy and start tearing through the house, jumping all over me and biting every part of my body she could reach. We were exhausted and frustrated.
When she was 5 months old, we realized that what we were doing wasn’t working, and we enrolled her into Helen’s Puppy Class. Helen understood everything we were going though. She talked me through tearful phone calls and frustrated emails. She gave us techniques to deal with the separation anxiety. She told us how we could burn up some of her energy during the day with interactive toys and food containers. She helped us teach Ellie to gradually reduce the pressure of her bites. She taught us how to train Ellie in a way that let her be her sweet, goofy, loving, spazzy self. She gave us back our sanity without breaking Ellie’s spirit.
We all loved Helen so much, we took the Level 1 and Level 2 classes, too. Ellie has learned things I didn’t even know I wanted her to do. We went from having a 5 month old puppy who could not even see the other dogs (or people) in the puppy class without losing all concentration, to a year old dog who would stay laying down surrounded by 4 other dogs in the middle of a busy park, and come right to me when I called her. We still have some challenges, and Helen continues to be there for us when we have trouble figuring out what to do. We could not have ask for a better trainer, and we cannot thank her enough.”
-Brandi, Nick & Ellie