Client Reviews and Testimonials

My husband and I brought home a new puppy in early January and with the excitement felt instantly overwhelmed. After speaking with a friend who used Bark Busters, I submitted a request for contact and a few minutes later received a call from Barbara Fassett directly. We chatted about Gemma, she explained the program to me and we scheduled our first appointment. I felt more at ease just knowing we weren't in this alone. Barbara spent 3 hours at our house that first night going through an education for us and for Gemma so we understood more about how dogs communicate. She gave us some initial training tools and we instantly felt like we had some control over Gemma's behavior instead of her controlling us. The day after, we noticed a significant difference in how Gemma interacted with us and listened and that continued to improve each day. Just about 6 weeks later and she is almost fully potty trained, willingly goes into her crate, sits and stays..., and understands the correction commands. Barbara has given us the tools we need to become 'leader of the pack' and we're excited to see how Gemma continues to improve! Permalink

Chris was amazing. Always on time, knowledgeable and effective. We did the 6 month training program and now have a rescue dog that listens and can take walks anywhere outside with the peace of mind she will listen and come on command. Chris had all the training aids and taught us several tricks I would never had known can help train a pet. I would recommend Bark Busters to ALL pet owners looking to train their pet. Thank you Chris!!! Permalink

Our newly adopted young dog was very affectionate and smart -- and loud! Barked when she heard something outside, when someone came to the front door, and went completely crazy when other people or dogs were nearby during a walk. Mark was so reassuring and helpful, and taught us how to communicate with Sienna so she could just relax and be her sweet self all the time. Complete turnaround after one visit! The indoor barking was gone. Our subsequent trainings helped us with her leash manners and being more responsive to commands like "Come!" This approach works! And Mark is great to work with -- he keeps us calm, and teaches us, and answers all of our many questions with patience. I recommend him highly to everyone! Permalink

We just finished up our 3 months of training with Nancy at Bark Busters today! What a life saver she was. When I first called we were struggling with our 10 month old Goldendoodle. Nancy reminded us that we needed to be the leader and now we have a very well behaved Doodle. No longer are we fretting on how we will deal with the dog. She listens, knows commands, and stays next to us during walks. I highly recommend Bark Busters to anybody that might need a little help. Nancy was the best for our family and our Doodle fell in love with her! Permalink

Very helpful. Katie learned very quickly (as did her owner)! She and I learned how to communicate in "dog-language" and practiced using it. Communication was great (both dog to human and human to human). I learned "no" in dog language & she learned "leave it & "sit". I'm learning to growl but I'm not very good at it yet- need more practice! Permalink

I was very impressed with the training and what a great help Jeri was to me. She made me realize that it was most important for me to make the changes on how to handle our dog and that would reap the best results. It has been such a drastic change in 5 weeks - Bowie has become a calmer dog also. Permalink

We called on Scot after over a year of escalating aggressive and distressing behavior by our 3.5 year-old pug. After moving into a new home, when our pug was about 2 years old, he began to showing signs of dominance, aggression and separation anxiety. For example, he perceived anything on our new, large screen TV as a threat, and he would repeatedly run at the wall the TV screen is mounted on, barking and running around the house, sniffing out a mispercieved threat. It got so bad that he was getting overheated from the distress. It got to the point that we could no longer turn on the TV without him going ballistic. This behavior then generealized to images on our laptop computers and smart phones that he would see. When we would try to put him in a separate room so we could watch TV without exposing him to the distress of the TV, he began attacking us as we would try to close the door, say, to our bedroom or office, where we would try to keep him. Additionally, he became increasingly aggressive with us (and anyone) who would try to leave our house -- jumping, barking, nipping and trying to block our exit. To try to remediate these behaviours, which were distressing to our pug as well as everyone in our family, we read books and watched videos online to try to find a fix, but our efforts yielded nothing helpful. Finally, feeling desperate, we stumbled across Scot and Bark Busters online. We were drawn to the in-the-home approach of Bark Busters as well as a number of other features of theirs that seemed more appealing than other options we had researched. Incredibly, after only a few hours of working with Scot, our pug's behaviour (as well as our family's towards him) improved. For the first time in over a year, we can now turn on and watch TV without eliciting a firestorm of barking and distressing behaviour from our pug. While we need to continue to practice and reinforce the techniques/approaches Scot taught us, we finally feel like we are on solid footing in our interaction with our pug. The dynamic between us has been reset. Our only wish is that we had learned these approaches earlier: a lot of stress and frustration could have been saved for all. Still, we are so happy to be where we are now, and we are so very grateful for the kind, knowledgeable and practical approach that Scot brought to training our pug and us -- no doubt the bulk of the education was directed at training us humans how to communicate/interact more effectively with our pug. Scot's thoughtful approach is something we hope more people experience. Permalink

excellent. our puppy responded to the trainer right away. we haven't done as well, but we need to be more consistent. Permalink

Ellie is a different dog!!! We can't believe some of the simplest techniques work so well. Thank you for your help and giving us a perfect companion. Permalink

Loved it! Amazing - quick response. Permalink