Bark Busters Reviews

I saw a remarkable difference in my dog & will definitely refer Karen and Bark Busters.

• #Chewing
• #Hyperactivity
• #Jumping up
• #Pulling
• #Puppy management
• #Recall

John was very knowledgeable with all issues. He answered all questions or concerns that we had. Highly recommend him to friends.

• #Chewing
• #Jumping up
• #Pulling
• #Recall
• #Separation anxiety

We are very excited after our first virtual session with Karen to learn how to make our dogs happy, well mannered & to have a healthy environment for all.

• #Barking
• #Digging
• #Hyperactivity
• #Jumping up
• #Recall
• #Other

I have a Husky/American Staffordshire Terrier/German Shepherd Dog Mix, and she is a handful.

We rescued her from a shelter in Irvine and when she came home she was extremely dog aggressive, overly protective (to the point where she would growl at our roommates if they came to the doorway), a big leash puller, INSANE separation anxiety, and a super stressed out dog in general. She was very smart and learned new tricks fast but would only do them when she decided to. She is our first dog and our friends and family were not impressed *at first*.

We realized early on she would need training and began the search. Dog training is expensive and we were on a limited budget, especially since she had injured me early on requiring surgery (to pin my bones back in place) when she pulled the leash to get to another dog. We did a ton of research and took her to one of the highest rated dog behavioralists in the area (NOT Bark Busters). It was a disaster! The “trainer”’s dogs listened but because they were terrified of him and he gave harsh punishments out easily for any hint of misbehavior. Our dog actually got WORSE! She had never bit me before, but bit me during the training and following when I did the exercises with her! My boyfriend and I after less than a month decided to stop that training and do all we could on our own while we saved up for better training. We moved to Ventura county about 8 months later.

Enter Michael Hagan, Bark Buster’s trainer for Ventura County. No corrections from Bark Busters are aggressive — most of the corrections we do with our dog are actually just vocal.
First thing, we learned how to read our dog’s body language and with that, basically what she is thinking. We learned to see that things will be issues before our dog acts. We learned how to keep her more calm, and what was causing her to be more stressed out. Michael also listened to what we had been doing on our own, and recognized our hard work and let us know where we went wrong, and what we were on the right track for. Michael taught us the training exercises and we worked on them 10-15 minutes each day, and during walking our dog, we had to constantly correct her for leash pulling and praise her when she was doing what we wanted. Michael explained we would see a drastic difference in about 3 months as long as we stuck with it. We did, and 2 months in we were feeling doubtful - our dog seemed to realize we were trying to be the boss and was not a fan. At 3 months (almost on the dot), our dog miraculously had an attitude/behavior adjustment. Leash pulling just halted and she just did every command we gave her on command. We couldn’t believe it! We still needed to work on the dog aggression and separation anxiety (which were extremely severe, and we didn’t think there would be a quick fix for), but we just had this lovely calm, friendly obedient dog. It’s absolutely unbelievable the difference!
When I first got this dog, my dad described her as “more of a cat than a dog.” He now brags to other people about how we turned this dog into one of the best dogs. Every time someone meets my dog we get at least one compliment on her behavior. A lot of people are shocked to hear we got her from a rescue, and think we must be exaggerating when we describe how she was when we got her.

We still do training exercises with her daily, but it’s not much and it is so worth it.

We’ve been using the Bark Busters method for about half a year now and we are working towards getting a second dog (something we didn’t think would be a possibility for over a year at least since starting training with Bark Busters!), with Michael’s help. We may be getting a second dog as soon as a month from now! Michael is very involved, and works closely with a rescue so are looking at dogs that will be the best matches for our dog.

• #Aggression
• #Barking
• #Hyperactivity
• #Jumping up
• #Pulling
• #Recall
• #Separation anxiety