Hero's Starting School!

You don't know what you don't know... so I've decided to seek professional help for my pup. Not that he's bad or anything, but I just want to make sure that he can be the best that he can be. The last thing I want is a poorly behaved dog, especially after my experience with the family dog Patch! I want to make sure to do it right the first time round so I don't have to go backwards somewhere down the line to eliminate bad habits and retrain things that he could have learned in the first place.

I went through quite a few dog training websites such as Toronto Dogs and Toronto Barks before I finally decided on the one. It was really helpful when I found a "Best Of" list on the Toronto Barks website, where people voted for the best products and services for dogs. The best training school was actually Who's Walking Who which is super close to where I'm living (just down the street), but unfortunately, the classes were on Monday and I have a course I'm taking that night so it didn't work.

Alas, I came upon All About Dogs with Renee, which was second on the list of best trainers in the city. The classes were on Thursday evenings for 1 hour, which I was able to fit into my schedule, but before I committed, I made sure to get tons of references from previous clients so I could be sure that Hero would be in good hands. The letters came pouring in with praise for Renee and her training methods.

Hero is officially enrolled in the First Paw Forward course... or I like to call it Kinderpuppy. 6 weeks every Thursday for $205 bucks - ouch! My sister Ami and I went to the course and we learned quite a few useful pointers in marker based training. Renee was really excellent with the dogs and Hero was the tiniest one there! He was so small that we didn't dare to let him socialize with the other dogs. They were all bigger breeds and quite aggressive since they were constantly barking or running around. Hero observed quietly and unfortunately, when he came home, he decided to copy them! He started barking and running around like a crazy dog when we got home that night for the first time since I got him. It scared me so I've emailed the trainer already... hopefully this doesn't do more harm than good!