I was skeptical of Bark Busters - our dog has been through several classes and we've gone through different training methods suggested by different reading materials. What could Bark Busters possibly offer for the price of 6 classes that I couldn't find myself? The answer is everything! I wanted to wait 6 weeks before I wrote my review to give the training methods time and see how everything settled, and I can really say David Wiley of Bark Busters is worth every penny.
Tyson was a great puppy who at about 10 months developed pretty severe leash aggression, lunging and snarling at any other dog and even little kids. He was scared of skateboards and bikes, and barked/growled at anything that came too close to us. I was scared he was going to bite someone. That's what I called Bark Busters for, but after taking their dog behavioral quiz, it turned out there was a lot of things Tyson wasn't perfect at: recall, loose leash walking, listening to our commands 100% of the time, jumping. These things were so minor in my mind I didn't even consider them as things we'd work on, but they covered it all. We made a "wish list" for Tyson and have been hitting every mark.
David spent three hours with us our first session at the apartment and asked a lot of questions so that he could really understand Tyson's schedule and lifestyle and reactions to things. We worked on the leash aggression, and set up homework sessions for his jumping, recall, leash attentiveness, and up/off furniture. He let us continue Tyson's training before following up a month later with another in house appointment, and Tyson's progress in 4 weeks was nothing short of amazing. His lunging has completely stopped, and he issues warning growls maybe 1 out of 10 dogs now. He ignores them otherwise. He's better with children, and now instead of snapping at them, if he's uncomfortable he gives signals (ears back, steps back, low growl) that we can fully read and exit the situation in plenty of time. This alone has reduced my stress level so much.
Tyson now waits for us to go in doors first, will walk loose leash next to us, rarely jumps, and will get on/off furniture on command. He is so much more calm and seems to be happy because of it. Even people at work and his doggie daycare noticed. At this pace, I can only imagine that in another month, our problems should be next to eradicated.
The best part for me is that the service comes with a lifetime guarantee - for the life of our dog, David will help us through anything. After our second session (during which Tyson did great), David said, "We'll probably be seeing each other when he gets to be 1 and a half, maybe 2 years old. He'll start testing boundaries and being an adolescent." I get to have the same level of training in the future for any new problems Tyson develops, and it's all covered with the one time payment.
If group classes haven't worked for you, and the internet isn't getting you closer to what you are looking for, I strongly recommend Bark Busters and David Wiley to be the answer you were looking for."
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Bark Busters dealt with Aggression, Hyperactivity, Jumping up, Pulling, Puppy management