My Obedient Dog

Sho Papazian is the most reliable, easy going, knowledgeable and best dog trainer we have ever met. She has been training my 2-​year dog for a couple months now (excessive barking, anti-​social, anxious, leash pulling, insecure, marking and excessive chewing). After the first lesson we saw a marked improvement in our dog. Since then we have been doing in home training as well as boarding and the progress our dog has made is absolutely incredible, I can barely recognize that he is the same dog. All the wanted behaviors have stopped, he has learned commands and we have learned how to properly correct him when he is displaying any unwanted behaviors. Additionally we have learned how to take back the dominant role, productively drain his high energy and keep him calm and happy. We would not have been able to accomplish this with out Sho (we tried for 2 years and things only got worse until we reached out to Sho for help). We are so impressed and amazed everyday with what he has learned as well as what we have learned from Sho and this experience. We are absolutely thrilled to have found Sho and feel incredibly lucky to have her as our dog trainer.

I’ve been doing semi-​weekly classes with Sho, sharing the lesson between myself and my mother’s dog. Sho is a great and no-​nonsense trainer. She has wealth of knowledge and experience that is demonstrated by her ability to answer all of the obtuse and out-​of-​left-​field questions we could possibly think of. She’s great with dogs, shows up on time, is very communicative and easy to reach, and has been nothing but a pleasure to work with.

Sho Papazian is the best dog trainer I have met, and I have met several. She is a true professional in her approach to handling dogs and teaching their owners. In the short time I have known her I have graduated from needing Sho’s help to wanting her to help me teach my dog new things. One of my favourite things about Sho is that there is no cookie-​cutter approach. she assesses the situation and knows what to do. I never had a dog before and I was pretty stressed for my first year. I have I high energy dog and I didn’t know how to handle him. Now he obeys all of my commands and I can walk him around my neighbourhood with no leash. You can’t accomplish these results without an in-​depth understanding of how to handle dogs and knowing how to teach the dog’s owners. Sho Knows! If you need help with your dog, call her. you’ll be glad you did.
Steven

First contacted Sho (trainer/​owner of business) 2^nd week of June. Paid our deposit, went to location indicated and business is basement of residence. Not a problem, as long as it’s good.
1^st class, 2 people signed up. In the middle of the class Sho gets into an argument with the other student about negative reinforcement.
After the 1^st class, no contact was made so we go to our designated out door location as planned. Waited at the park and no one showed up. I guess the other student cancelled. Where was the communication? My time’s pretty valuable too…
Reaching out to her afterwards and she says her dogs are going through some medical surgeries. That’s a bad excuse and not a good reason. If I ran a business I’d make sure I contact my students that I can’t make it. Phone calls or emails don’t take long at all.
Arrangements were made to have the class rescheduled, and by this time it’s end of August. In between was a lot of «Can’t this week, busy taking care of dog» and «I’m not available». In the end we asked for our money back, which was given but our EMT cost and time wasted was not reimbursed. She didn’t offer to give a discount given the hassles we’ve gone through. It was either you want your money back or we’ll try to schedule another class AGAIN! At least offering a discount it would’ve made our hassles worth it! Poor business practice!
We feel that our puppy’s prime puppyhood was wasted having to deal with her constant excuses with delaying classes. We wasted our summer time to train her outdoors because of the constant delays and excuses. In our OPINION, we feel that the constant delays have more of a connection with the lack of participants and students willing to sign up to her service. But that’s only our educated guess.
Let’s just say we took our business elsewhere where it’s run properly and has a storefront. The business transaction handled between us was unprofessional to say the least.