If you are skeptical about training or struggling to find a trainer you feel like you can trust to help with your furry family members, you need to read this! Adrienne Greene with Bark Busters absolutely changed our lives! She is a professional, charismatic trainer and very knowledgeable about our 4 legged furry friends behaviors. The training she provided is simple, was a bit counterintuitive for my human mind at first, and dare I say, magical! I would recommend her 100 times out of 100. But let me give you a little background on our particular situation so that you can make the best decision possible for you and your situation. We got our family’s first ever dog in October of 2019, a beautiful Australian Labradoodle named Millie. Then the world shut down from Covid. So, like many people in our situation, Millie lived at home with us while kids went to online school and adults moved to a work from home environment. When the world started to normalize again, we took Millie out to the kids sports, to the park, and other places. My poor little pup acted like Cujo around other dogs, people or any animal in general. She responded to any encounter with out of control barking, growling, teeth gnashing, lunging and just all around aggressive, out of control behavior. We had no idea what to do. So we started to research dog trainers. We talked to a dozen different trainers that all had different philosophies and in the end they all made us a bit uncomfortable. So we did nothing. We just continued with the status quo and either brought Millie with us and endured the crazy aggressive behavior by trying to avoid other people and dogs, or we left her at home. Those awful encounters just encouraged us to limit her interactions with other people and dogs even further. Millie is super affectionate and loves all of us and we love her dearly. I knew she needed some kind of training if I was ever going to be able to take her with us and have her enjoy being out and about with us. So, we started looking for trainers again. We waded through countless web pages reading about different training systems, reviews, methods, and pricing models. We tried some socialization and behavior training and had a horrible experience because nothing changed with her behavior. So once again we decided that we would just continue with the status quo, and sadly, that we might not be able to take her with us anymore. Then came August 2022 and my family started to talk to me about getting another puppy. I love Millie and she brings so much joy to my life. I was extremely hesitant to get another puppy because I was worried about how Millie would respond to a new puppy in our home. I did not want to bring a new dog into our home and make her miserable, nor did I want to make the rest of my family miserable. So we started reading about the right way to introduce a new puppy to an existing dog. Once again, there were several different opinions regarding the right way to do this and it felt impossible to know which way was correct. I kept reading about needing to be ready for an outcome where the dogs just refused to be around one another and needing to isolate them from one another forever. Talk about going from bad to worse. I just could not imagine putting Millie and my family through that. I knew that if I agreed to get a new puppy, I could not get the introduction process wrong. Ultimately, I agreed to get a new puppy.
That brings me to Adrienne and Bark Busters. My wife came across the Bark Busters website and asked me to look at it. After looking at 30 or 40 different training sites over the years, and having a bad experience with one, I was naturally skeptical about the process in general. I liked what I read on the Bark Busters website and like many training sites they had some good reviews that seemed to mirror the behaviors that we saw with Millie. Even after all of that I said no at first. Then I slept on it, and the next morning decided that I just could not afford to get the introduction process wrong and I needed help with that so I called Bark Busters. I made an appointment with Adrienne and explained my situation to her. She scheduled us for our first training, which was the day after we were picking up the new puppy and asked that I not introduce the two dogs until she was there and we worked with Millie first. After all of the bad interactions we had with Millie and other dogs I thought to myself, there is no hope of fixing Millie, but at least we can get the new puppy introduction right. BOY WAS I WRONG! Adrienne came into our home and began to teach my family how to speak dog, without Millie being involved yet. Now I was really skeptical. I came into this process with an open mind but as she described this simple process of correcting all of Millie’s aggressive behaviors, I was telling myself that there was no way this was going to work and that I had made the wrong choice. Then we brought Millie into the training environment and started working with her and to say that my mind was blown is an understatement! As we worked with Millie over the next hour or so, I witnessed a dog that started to show impulse control, was in the room with a stranger and wasn’t showing any signs of aggression, met another dog on leash and showed no signs of aggressive behavior, etc… My son asked her where she learned her black magic because our dog was acting like a completely new, much better behaved dog. Then we moved on to introducing Millie to our new puppy Maverick. It went okay, but Millie showed some aggressive behavior and was not comfortable with it. We bought into the super simple training that Adrienne gave us and over the next day, we had very good interactions between the two dogs keeping Maverick in his puppy pen and Millie outside of it. So the next day we moved to interactions with both dogs on a leash in our front yard. And to my surprise Millie was amazing. After one day, she had no growling, barking, lunging, nothing. She was a completely different dog! Now she was not used to playing with another dog so she is learning to play less aggressively, but after 2 days of my family working with her, she is no longer showing any signs of aggression toward our new pup. So by the end of day 2 we moved onto on leash interactions in the house, which went very well. Day 3 we had both dogs interacting off leash in the house, but still with very close supervision. We had a stranger come to our door and Millie just stood in the other room and watched the interaction. No barking, growling, nothing! Seeing how well Adrienne’s training is working for our almost 3 year old dog and our new puppy, I wish we would have found her and trained with her years ago. But you don’t know what you don’t know and if you are like me, you love your dog, and there is a lot of different information out there about training methods, and you don’t want to do the wrong thing with your best friend. Or you have tried some training and it did not work. If any of this resonates with you and your situation, please call Adrienne at Bark Busters. She did nothing short of change our lives. 4 days ago we had an adult dog that was extremely aggressive toward other dogs and strangers. Today, I have her in my office with me and have introduced her to several new people. Using Adrienne’s training I had no problem introducing them and Millie greeted each of them happily. Yes you read that correctly. 4 DAYS LATER, my once aggressive dog is meeting strangers in a strange environment and enjoying the experience. I took her out to walk in a strange environment and she walked well on the leash, relieved herself, met a new strange dog, all without incident and she did so well! Now she was still a little uncertain about meeting the new dog today, but she did really well. No barking, growling, lunging, nothing. Just a little tentative to meet the new dog, but she did so well! Now you know why I described Adrienne’s training as magical. I don’t know how to describe it any better than that. It is super simple, seems a little counterintuitive at first, and just flat out works like nothing I have ever seen before. By the end of day one, I was telling my self what an idiot I was for not doing this years ago. Listen the bottom line is that her training works, and it works better than I ever imagined it would. I had sadly given up hope of being able to take Millie out in pubic with me and 4 days later she is meeting strangers like a happy dog and sitting by my side in my office. I am not here to convince you to use Bark Busters. If you took the time to read about my situation and you made it this far, you know that I understand the apprehension that is involved with finding a trainer for your best friend and trusting that what they are doing is the right thing. I am only here to share my story of success and hopefully empower you to change your life and the life of your furry friend(s) for the better.
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Bark Busters dealt with Aggression, Barking, Pulling, Puppy management, Separation anxiety
Trainer note from Adrienne :
You guys are amazing and did the work and the follow-up. Such a pleasure to see people love their dogs the way you all do. Great job and thanks for the kind words.