Sentire LLC - Turlock, California

James T.

Allie has been helping me with my puppy and my older dog for a few months now(Kerry Blue Terriers). My older dog (the puppy's mother) had a tendency towards anxious reactiveness with a lot of vocalization and whining at times. I had taught her quite a few different commands but her follow through, especially in high distraction environments, and her recall, was not where I wanted it to be.

I did a few week board and train with her and then in follow-up sessions Allie got me set up with an e-collar, thoroughly going over different approaches and the pros of why we were doing it the way we were doing it. I had never been able to trust my dog off leash and the most freedom she ever had was with a 50 ft long lead. With this training I've been able to give my dog so much more freedom and have her truly off leash in an open wild life preserve environment with other dogs around. Being able to interact with other dogs in a natural way has started to demystify dog interaction to her and now she is non vocal/non reactive when off leash (other than normal play sounds) and when on leash she is much quieter and doesn't vocalize 90% of the time now and pretty much only whines if another dog is being highly reactive towards her. However, even in those moments the intensity and duration of her vocalization has decreased significantly and her responsiveness to commands has significantly increased along with her ability to move on and return to a normal state. I am very pleased with the results I have seen with her so far. It's wonderful to actually get to be able to see her not just be a dog with other dogs but also get to let her do her breeds job and search for gophers or whatever and fulfill her innate drive.

With the puppy I did a short board and train of a couple weeks just to lay some foundational work and get the puppy off to a good start because I was right in the middle of moving from SoCal to NorCal and didn't have the time to do everything I needed to do in that critical 12-15 week period and didn't want the puppy to suffer for it. And I also didn't want the mother to be a bad influence on the puppy during all that I had going on during that time.

Allie was very accommodating even though she only had very short notice from me and was able to line things up so that right when I got the puppy back from the board and train, I dropped the mother off for her board and train and that gave me a few weeks where I could just focus on the puppy. In follow-up sessions Allie has helped me with making sure the puppy doesn't turn out like how the mother was. The breed defaults towards the reactive side and knowing how to manage it and troubleshoot it when you encounter it in a way that doesn't make the reactivity worse is critical, and while the puppy has had his moments, with Allie's help I've been able to manage those moments and get the puppy through them and so far he has generally been significantly better than the mother was at the same age.

Lastly, I have to say I'm a huge fan of the focus on play and relationship building in the training, with the mother I started doing obedience style food training very early and while I played with her I didn't incorporate it in the training much. Alternatively, with the puppy almost all my training has involved play to a large degree and other than recall, sit, and responding to his name the rest of the training has just focused around understanding general manners and building engagement through play with the plan to teach further behaviors a little bit later on as necessary. As a result I think I have a much better and more fun relationship with my puppy at 6 months then I did with the mother at the same time or pretty much ever and the puppy is much more responsive to me.

Allie has been a great help to me in becoming a better trainer, having a better relationship with my dogs and getting my dogs to a better standard. I would highly recommend her to any whether you have serious problems with your dog or just want to be a better trainer in general.