Walk This Way Canine Behavior Therapy

We’ve been working with Renee since we went to puppy socialization about 7 months ago. Since then we have completed level 1 and level 2 obedience. Renee is highly skilled and really focuses on your dog’s specific needs. She always ask if there are questions before class begins and tries to hone in on how she can help you and your pet. She is incredibly responsive, getting back to my emails right away. She is also hilarious and really seems to get each pet’s personality right away. Our pup has come so far. She is very well mannered and respectful. We will always be using the skills we learned with Renee. We highly recommend working with her as the entire process has been incredibly fun and rewarding!

Renee has been incredibly helpful with our new puppy. We had NO idea what we were getting ourselves into and she has taken away all our stress by giving us clear guidance and really practical advice. She is incredibly responsive when when we text or email with questions AND she has a great sense of humor and is fun to work with. It’s been such a good experience that we’ve continued on with lessons to learn tricks and other fun things. I would highly recommend working with Renee.

I left Renee and her business a honest and truthful review of my extremely poor experience with her. See below for that review. Renee has since sent me a couple messages over Unilocal,not to see if there was a misunderstanding or if there was anything she could do to amend the situation, but to 1) falsely accuse me of being paid to write what she calls a «fake review» of her business, 2) say that she’s planning on filing a defamation lawsuit against me as advised by Unilocal rep, and 3) rudely ask me for my address or she was going to have her attorney find it and charge me the attorney’s fees. I am doubtful that a Unilocal rep would hand out unsolicited legal advice without fully understanding the situation. Unilocal never contacted me, regarding this situation, prior to Renee sending me messages on Unilocal.If you read my other reviews, it’s pretty clear that I have a documented history of being a dog owner and have reviewed several other pet related businesses. I still stand by my opinions that Renee is very rude and unprofessional, and her latest actions have further convinced me that my initial feelings about her were on point.
In addition, thanks to Renee’s comment, I was reminded to finish my review about «Magic Man» as she calls him, and I just finished that review.

I had a home visit from Renee about three months ago, the focus of which was dealing with my very fearful dog’s aggression towards visitors in my apartment. I had been following all the standard positive advice I could find online, but my dog didn’t show much improvement. I actually stopped having guests over because of his issues.
Renee assessed my dog similarly to how you might assess a computer bug. It really reminded me of troubleshooting. She figured out how to get him below threshold, and then tested what would get him agitated and then what steps we could take to mitigate that agitation. He was showing marked improvement by the end of the session.
I now have a house guest for ten days, and have been dreading it since we’ve never had an overnight guest before. I followed Renee’s advice, and I have seen an enormous improvement in my dog’s behavior and stress levels. He is able to be in the same room as my guest, with my guest laughing and talking loudly, and not only does my dog not bark and growl constantly, but he is also not in a state of constant terrified agitation. He is happy to take treats, and even to doze off, as long as our guest doesn’t approach him.
He definitely still has his problems – I don’t want to make this sound like a miracle/​quick fix – but I didn’t expect him to reach this level of calm until the sixth or seventh day. I have high hopes for continued improvement and would definitely seek Renee’s help again if his behavior/​emotional state deteriorated.

Walk This way is the right way!!! Renee is to the point. Amazing. Highly recommended.
We have shiba who has some separation anxiety issues. I was given Walk this way infro by a friend. Renee and her intern came to our house and gave us great lessons and tricks to deal with our shiba. Shibas are picky learners. But we learned a lot from renee. Plus they were quick with answering and scheduling.

How would I sum up our experience with Renee? AMAZING!
As background, my girlfriend and I recently adopted a 6-​month old Beagle named Olive. While she was a sweetheart most of the time, there were a few moments that left us perplexed on how to respond… enter Renee!
We signed up for 3 private/​in-​home lessons, and from Session #1 Olive has become a completely different pup: understanding and responding to «sit, down, off, leave it, drop it and come here!»
Most important, Renee is INCREDIBLE with our dog. It’s certainly a testament to her ability and love of animals that she is able to engage and maintain interest of our sometimes stubborn pup while going through training over the period of an hour.
Finally, she was patient & flexible with us… teaching us how we can work with our dog and answering our many (many) questions throughout the sessions, as well as afterwards via email. She is very responsive and seems to really care about owners and their pets. I would highly recommend Renee if you’re looking for some help with your dog.

We had three private training sessions with Renee and our dog Pickle to help with some outstanding puppy issues (jumping up /​not coming when called all the time, etc). Renee was great with teaching both us and Pickle, and was always on time despite the sometimes bad weather (it was in February). Thanks to Renee, Pickle now knows all of her basic commands (sit, down, come, stay, and also play dead and roll over). Renee was also great in following up with us over email after the last private training session to check that Pickle was still doing well, and gave us great advice to reinforce positive behaviors.

Renee is the best trainer to teach nose work and other tasks for service dog training! She is knowledgeable, responsive, kind, and thoughtful. With every step my experience with her was a pleasure.

Talk about interventions. Our first private training session w/​Renee was great. We’ve got a 2.5 yr old Frenchie that was starting to show some aggression and definitely living up to her bull-​headed attitude. Since training session one here’s what we’ve accomplished w/​Mochi:
A) It’s amazing! Its like we’ve got a completely different animal living in our roof.
B) «Drop it» is sticking really well even with high value toys and objects (slippers, antler)
C) Aggression has disappeared with her crate, bed and other high value objects
D) «Off» is ingrained in her. She hasn’t been jumping up on our couch and waits for us to lift her up if we want. She’s actually been resting in her bed and crate as opposed to the couch corner.
Definitely looking forward to future sessions.

oh my Renee! we’ve done an at home class and we’re on our third or forth week of obedience 1 and I think we’re getting it. now, our dog is doing just fine but the human element is the tricky part. we met renee doing at home one-​on-​one to help acclimate our ten year old shih-​tzu to our 7 week old pit bull puppy that we’d just fostered, fell inexplicably in love with and rescued. and here we are like «omg what did we just do?» sleep deprived and covered in God knows what. so, yes, we have to crate because he’ll sneak off and pee and then who’s fault is that for not watching him? and it’s not puppy jail. and a spray bottle is not animal cruelty. it’s a game changer. (like life is suddenly illuminated) all of her advise has been spot on. renee has been amazing, helpful, beyond knowledgeable and patient with us. puppies aren’t all just-​add-​love-​and-​water, it’s a legitimate commitment to work w the dog and with Renee in our little guy’s corner I know he’ll be the best dog ever.

Renee is great. She is able to pull from years of experience to help trouble-​shoot your dog’s specific issues, and she’s helpful with trying different approaches until you find something that works for your dog.
I like her approach. I think she strikes a good balance of positive reinforcement and firm guidance. I appreciate that she lets dogs be dogs. And she does not try to turn you into a militant pack leader.
And she’s fun! I think she’s super funny and a hoot to work with.

We just completed Renee’s «Obedience 1» group class and are so thankful we did this!
Context: we have a 4.5 month old rescue puppy and were seeing some troubling behaviors that we didn’t know quite how to address, (she is our first!) so we signed up for Renee’s class one month ago.
Here are some reasons we think Renee rocks:
1) great sense of humor; she’ll make you laugh, which I think is important in something that can feel stressful (ie learning how to parent a puppy or feeling like a crappy parent, which is how I felt before taking Renee’s class).
2) As others have said, she will answer your questions even outside the class: she will email you and even call you to check in. She is patient and clearly genuinely cares about dogs.
3) Her advice worked for us! Her guidance helped us nip some troubling behaviors in the bud AND helped us get on the same page with training our pup, and you can see the difference in our pup one month later!
4) IMO, her class is fun, productive, efficient and worth the cost: I would definitely take another class with her.

I was referred to Rene when I started to anxiety pee when my person left the house. Rene gave me some excellent exercises and was also very helpful following my progression. I liked her attitude, very patient and dog friendly. A few weeks later and a half later and no more pee. I’m chill and the house no longer smells like the Black Plague. I highly recommend.

About a year and a half ago, my wife and I rescued an amazing beagle/​hound mix. He (Riley) is really a good dog but suffered from separation anxiety and, no matter how much we tired him out, he was simply all over the place (trying to get into everything in our apartment, running around like a mad dog, etc). After a few months of owning him, we were super tired just from trying to tire him out constantly!
We took Riley to puppy school even though he was already a year old when we first got him. That helped us understand positive-​reinforcement and clicker training. This was really helpful in getting him to listen to us for simple commands (i.e. sit, stay [which is still a tough one], come here, lay down, «look at me» or «touch» my hand). But… that still didn’t calm him down very much. Jumping on people when they came to our home, climbing all over us when we’re sitting on the couch, running around the apartment like crazy were definite concerns…
Insert Renee here. She’s straight-​to-​the-​point, no BS and understands your issue/​problem and will offer her tactics and advice to get through it.
My wife found Renee and while we were a bit skeptical on how she could adjust Riley’s hyper activity, she quickly unlocked the secret. She explained that positive reinforcement works great your dog to do what you want, but it doesn’t necessarily work (effectively) to get him to *stop* doing what you don’t want him to be doing…
She figured out that Riley really didn’t know his place and was constantly trying to find something to do. All we had to do was guide him, really… give him treats when he’s doing well, and (humanely) prevent him from doing things he shouldn’t. It’s amazing what a little water and bitter apple spray can do :) Now, our friends and family look at Riley and say, «Is that the same dog? He’s so different — calm, and normal!» On a separate session, Renee also helped us deal with Riley’s separation anxiety (he hates being left alone — and we both have to go to work for 8 – 10 hours a day, so that was an obvious problem). He’s doing SO MUCH better now…
Honestly, without Renee, I think my wife and I were ready to accept our dog as he was — and our lives would have been much different. Now, we can chill with our dog like normal people, and we can leave him at home without feeling guilty and awful because he was crying/​howling for hours…
Life is good. Thank you Renee!

My little mutt, Ziggy, is as sweet as can be with people and his dog buddies at the park, but he recently developed some bad leash aggression habits and had become increasingly territorial in and around the house with regard to strange dogs walking by, etc. It was all becoming kind of stressful for me so I contacted Renee to get some professional help.
Renee was very informative and extremely helpful with the situation. We did a private session where she showed me various methods that have proven very effective in helping him with his issues. I also signed up for two leash aggression group sessions, so I could see how he did with other dogs in the class. Renee explained to us how important it was to get the training method right and be consistent for as long as it takes.
Zig is doing much better. He has his moments, but many times it’s because I didn’t catch and correct the behavior in time and I know we are still at the beginning of our little journey. I am confident in Renee’s advice because I’ve seen it work and I know that eventually, with time, Ziggy will be as confident as I am.
My favorite thing about working with Renee is that it is obvious she knows and understands dogs and she shares her knowledge in a very unique, funny manner. It’s also obvious that she cares. After both the private session and the group sessions, Renee was wonderfully responsive to emails/​questions, always inquired about Ziggy’s progress and offered additional suggestions if certain things didn’t seem to be working.
Ziggy and I are both thankful we found her and will definitely be in touch with her for some of the other doggie classes she offers!!!

Renee’s suggestions and methods makes sense, she is fantastic, and the results are great. What else would you want from a trainer?
This review is for the level 1 adult class for our new rescue puppy (50 lbs). We missed the first class out of four, so we did a phone review of Renee’s ground rules and got to ask any questions (which you also can do before the end of each class). We had many, and the answers were incredibly helpful. By the end of the three classes, our pup had gotten sit, down, leave it, drop it, come, and «bed.» Her tips also helped us with walking on a leash and with reducing kennel crying. Wahoo!
Renee’s teaching method (which she augments with explanatory literature and other suggested resources) is not gimmicky and requires you to put in work on your part, but it works really well as long as the dog’s human stays engaged. Most of all, she seems to get what the dogs are thinking about and helps the human figure out how to act, which is the key since your dog spends 1 hr a week at training and 100x that with you. All this while showing she obviously loves working with dogs. Starting level 2 class soon!

Met Renee for one session to deal with my dog lunging at people and kids. I kept doing what she suggested and he stopped reacting to people. Still reacts to dogs but my main concern was people anyway.
There was an unpleasant exchange we had before we met about neutering, with Renee telling me that I should neuter my dog otherwise I will keep having aggression problems.
First of all, IMO, neutering a dog just because I don’t know how to work on his problems (that I most likely created to begin with) is wrong. Besides, I don’t subscribe to the neutering movement. I’m not breeding him but I’m not neutering either and I didn’t appreciate the pressure.

Renee is amazing.
We moved here from Austin, TX with a dog who already thought ATX had too much going on. After six months of our dog not adjusting to the sights and sounds of Brooklyn we called Renee. Within our first visit she helped us manage our dog better, and perhaps more importantly armed us with understanding and knowledge of what to expect from our dog.
We love that Renee is no nonsense, tell it like it is individual. She clearly loves what she does and is passionate about her clients both human & K-​9. Calling in a ‘doggy shrink’ was a last resort for us, after working with Renee on a few visits, I wish she had been our first.

My 10yr old JRT Fiona & I had a terrific time in Renee’s level 2 training class. The class focused on proofing stays with distraction & strengthening basic obedience commands from a distance. While the lessons were challenging, Renee knows how to keep the exercises fun & engaging. By the time of our last class Fiona was staying put until released while irresistible tennis balls flew past her, not to mention mastering the ever impressive doggy push up, can you say party trick?
Two paws up for Walk this way. Can’t wait to try the Nose work class!

After just three private sessions with Renee, me and my year-​old rescue pit are learning our roles. Renee’ taught me how to be firm and in charge and she’s taught me how to teach my sweet, willful pup to sit, down, stay, go to his bed, stay off the couch, look at me when he sees another dog, stop chewing his leash and generally aspire to his best doggie self. She’s always on time, she keeps track of what me and the pup need to work on, she answers questions by email promptly between sessions, she is knowledgeable about nutrition and health and personalities — and doggie fashion! Plus, she confers doggie diplomas!
Disclaimer: I’ve never worked with another dog trainer, but I can’t imagine anyone as thoughtful, direct, responsive, and whispererlike as Renee. She clearly loves dogs, loves her own dog, wants others to be happy with their pets, and knows how to steer you in the right direction. I’m so grateful and I know my pup and my neighbors are, too. I expect to go back for more training soon! Thanks, Renee!