Follow My Pack

We got Jedi from a breeder 5 months ago, he was a very sweet and calm guy at first but after a couple weeks we just couldn't handle him. He was jumping and nipping and chewing all of our things. Plus he was constantly soiling and urinating in the crate and it was becoming almost unbearable. We did puppy classes which he did well at, but it just didn't translate at home.
We we're referred by a friend to Rene from Follow My Pack. He did 4 lessons with us where he not only taught us how to teach Jedi to behave but he gave us an extraordinary insight into the psychology of his behaviour (and ours). He was always on time and made himself available when we felt we we're having trouble. He even dropped in for a visit on his own time for free without us even asking to help us with a new cat coming into the home. Thanks Rene!

Sparky had a lot of nervousness and anxiety. He was terrified of strangers and would go nuts in the house when anybody came to the door. I was on a budget and found Rene. He ended up spending a lot more time then originally quoted at the consult and didn't charge any extra. The changes in Sparky were immediate and Rene has great passion for dogs and helping people in generally. If you need a trainer for anything, I highly recommend him.

Hayley had a huge problem lunging and people at the door and on walks. We had tried everything we could find online but to no avail.
We found Rene online and he came for a consultation. Right away we say how Hayley responded to him. He got her to calm down and wait patiently in a way we had not seen since she was a puppy.
His price was reasonable compared to the other we had talked to and after the first lesson we we're surprised we got her to pull and lunge as little as she did. The problem was after a few days we we're back to square one. After talking to Rene he came back the same week and didn't charge us. He helped me understand I was focusing too much and what I should do or what I thought Hayley can or can't do. He helped me focus on communicating with her better so she understood what I was asking.

Since our lessons Hayley almost never has a problem pulling hard or lunging and we all see how much more responsive she is to us and our commands. Rene has vast knowledge about how dogs (and we) operate. And is defineately passionate about making sure he helped us.

I would recommend to anybody.

Lindsay,
johnsonlindsayf@outlook.com

We got our chow chow 4 months ago as a puppy. She's great but had a hard time calming down. She was also nipping to the point that I had scrapes all over my hands constantly. My relationship with her was souring a bit. I did 4 sessions with Rene and am really happy with how well behaved Mogi is now. All my friends always comment on how calm and obedient she is, even though she is only 7 months old. I would Recommend Rene to anybody.

A couple of months ago, we became the proud parents of a 2 yr old boxer boy! We got him from an older retired couple. Although they trained him very well inside the house, he's a whole other dog outside. He's never been leash trained and grew up in a rural setting so as you can imagine, he had a lot to get accustomed to in the city with strange noise, sights and smells.

Our boxer pulls constantly on walks and extremely when seeing another dog. He's 55 lbs of pure muscles. Our main concern was his temperament with other dogs since we never had him since he's a pup. The first 2 weeks was a testament to our patience with him and is really putting my fiancy and I at odds as we have conflicting opinions on how to train him to walk on a leash and meet other dogs in a more calmly manner.

After hours and days of researching dog trainers, I was exhausted and don't know which one to go with. The affordable ones are indoor and class based setting and the private lessons are pricey.

And then I came across Follow My Pack. After reading the approach and the reviews, we decided to arrange a meet and greet with Rene. Before meeting him, I had some concerns as I have read some not so great reviews on Yelp. I'm so glad that I didn't listen to those reviews!

Rene made an impression on us immediately with his knowledge and common sense about dogs. He assessed our boxer right away and we really appreciate the fact that he does not rely on treats as primary training tool.

In the first lesson, we saw almost a 180 degree change in our dog! What we took away from the lesson has more to do with us than our dog. We learned to be patient and be in the moment and not anticipate the worst outcome.

What we didn't expect was Rene going above and beyond as a trainer. He realized that our boxer get much more excited and pulled a lot more than he anticipated so he offered to come back and work with us for another hour for FREE.

He truly cares about the dog and wanting to leave the owners with all the tools they need to continue working with their pet.

Today Mr Jiggs walks great on a leash. He still gets excited seeing another dog but it's such an improvement over 2 months ago! And we're still working on it. He's only going to get better. We learned that he's interest in other dogs is mostly in the initial meet&greet and then he usually just goes back to sniffing! He's a misunderstood pup who seems more intimidating than he really is...which is a big suck!

Thanks Rene for teaching us about ourselves so we can train our dog!

Reaksmey & Mike

We had Tyson for 2 months from a puppy, we had already done obedience classes which he was great in. But we we're having troubles with him at home. He was always getting so excited to see us to the point he would bump into us and bold out the doors. We had would be having a baby soon and wanted to get Tyson to a point where we could trust he wouldn't hurt my wife Amy or our boy to be Anton. We had tried with a trainer from another company and had okay results but only temporary.
At this point we we're getting ready to put Tyson up for adoption when a trainer at a Pet Store introduced us to his friend Rene. Rene had offered to work with us free of charge after hearing our story. Needless to say we are 6 months since we had given up on Tyson and I'm happy to say he is a calmer and entirely gentle Dog and we're just all so very happy.
And all I can say is his understanding of not only Dogs but Us people changed our perspective on how we see our relationship with Tyson and how we live our every day lives us parents and people. Thank you so much for your patience and help Rene!

I met with Rene and he convinced me that he could help train my dog. We paid over $400.00 for unlimited sessions, he showed up for two and didn't show up again.

I would not use this service if I were you.

We just finished our program with Rene at Follow My Pack with our 2 month sheltie Cassie, and our 5 year old bull dog, Spots. Me and my husband too had trouble after the first lesson as well. It was a lot of understanding to grasp and we were very unconfident that we would be able to follow through. We paid 450 for our training package, and we're promised as many lessons as needed as long as we were attemping to practice the excercise throughout the week. (We were explained the program before hand.)

After coming back and being explained and shown everything again, it became much easier to grasp the excercizes and we found each week that we we're making more progress on our own with Cassie and Spots.

Cassie was a puppy we had just picked up and we just required basic training. Spots we had since he was 2 years old, and he had barking, walking, meeting dogs, and house breaking problems.

We too we're explained the 'leave them in the crate'. But i thought this was to deal with whining and barking because of Seperation Anxiety.
We tried to do the same for Spot's barking and Rene explained to us that that is not an ideal method for older dogs. He showed us how to gradually increase crate time "p.s. our crate was just the corner of our living room."

At the end of the day, I'm happy to report that our dogs are just wonderfull, Spots barks once in a while, but when he does, we know why, and it's our own fauly. (too busy at work, lack of walks etc...)


P.S. i hired BB 2 years ago and they just stopped coming..Told me to stop going to dog park. ANyhoo

Thanks Rene!

I decided to go with an in-home trainer because my small dog has separation anxiety issues. As a result, he is fine while we are home, but my neighbours tell us that he barks when we are not home (which they obviously do not appreciate). I was hoping to find a trainer who could work on this specific issue (although I understand that it may be necessary to deal with other behavioural issues as well in order to fix this).

I see that there are some positive reviews about Rob, so if you are going to go with Follow My Pack, I suggest asking for him specifically, because we had a very negative experience with Rene.

First, the technique used is extremely harsh. I understand that I have to be the leader, and that I have to be firm, but if I were to follow everything he said, I would be miserable. He pushed an approach that never allowed the dog to do anything without my permission - that is not the kind of life I want for my dog. I found the approach to be to hard on my dog physically, as well. By the end of the training session, he was shaking and petrified from being tugged and lifted off the ground with his leash. I just can't believe there isn't a better way for him to see me as the leader.

They clearly use the Dog Whisperer (Cesar Millan) approach - after Rene left, I did some research, and all of the phrases they use are the same. For those of you who are fans of that method, I apologize, but please do some research before you put your dog through that. Not only has the American Human Society come out against it(and tried to lobby National Geographic to drop the show) but a group of veterinarians are also working to raise awareness about the harshness of his techniques (and the correlation between those who use Dog Whisperer training and illnesses in the dogs later in life due to stress).

Training approach aside, Rene himself was very abrupt. The session was much shorter than he said it would be, he clearly hadn't slept very much from the night before, and he spoke so quickly we could hardly understand what he was saying. After he left, I was very confused about what I was actually supposed to do (although truthfully I would not have done it to my dog anyway).

Finally, in response to the barking issue (which was the whole point of the training), he suggested crating the dog 24/7 and letting him "bark it out". If I were to do that, my neighbours would be very upset, which I tried to explain to him, but he didn't seem very responsive. He kept saying it was the fastest way to solve the problem. I can't believe I paid all that money for such useless advice!

All in all, it was a complete waste of money. I went with the most affordable in-home trainer I could find (Bark Busters is significantly more expensive) and it was a mistake. I wish you all better luck than I had!

Had a Great dane with seperation anxiety and walking issues. I originally wanted to drop Lucy off at a training center to correct the issues, but after meeting with rob they convinced me to work with their program. All in all, i am glad I chose this way, although it was a lot of work.

This is the 2nd trainer I've had to use for lula. The first one turned out bad, but i won't mention their name.

My trainer with follow my pack was Rob. Luna was a akita/sheppard mix. She was super super scared of everything. It even let to a couple dog attacks. The first thing i noticed with Rob is before we even began specific training techniques, he helped me understand my dog, why she was the way she was, and even helped me understand how i communicate with my dog! lol
Now, i've always known how to train dogs, but after working with Rob i realized, I just new what to do, but did understand how or why my previous dogs were properly trained.

I'll admit their program is a bit more work then ones i've used in the past, but as far as teaching me training, now that we're complete, it was well worth it, times a hundred.