Ahimsa Dog Training

I took my puppy here thinking of trying out a new dog training facility and I honestly will never come here again. First, they make all the dogs be «tied» down to their leash with some bolt in the ground. They then separate you based on your size of the dog. Whenever they gave instructions, you can barely see what they are telling you to do nor do they tell you in person what you can do to improve.
What I don’t like about this place was during the play time, they separated the dogs by size and barely looked at how your dog was doing during play. My dog was in the corner peeing himself to death because he was scared about the play going on around him. The trainer comes up to our area and says, «oh the play looks great here!» If the play is so great then why is my dog peeing himself in the damn corner?!
I will never come back here for any dog training and instead going back to University Canine Learning Academy!

Ahimsa Dog Training is a professional run school for pets and owners who are interested in positive discipline training. Today, Christmas Eve, I called with a problem having to do with house training. I was panicked over several messes the last few days since my husband and kids have left town. I was talked down by one of trainers who answered on the eve of the holiday with really good information that helped me to understand what was going on.
Additionally, I’ve been in puppy kindergarten with my golden. I found the teaching exercises, the explanations, the in class practice time to be invaluable, and easy to follow at home. Highly recommend.

The teachers here are GREAT. I took a Growly Dog class and an Intro class. The trainers were all very knowledgeable and the atmosphere was fun. I really feel like I learned a lot that my dog has improved on especially when it comes to leash walking and reactions to other dogs and also clicker training. I would definitely go back and would definitely recommend this great place. The only reason I didn’t give them a perfect score is because I think the only thing they need to work on is getting back to people via communications. I left them a voicemail in May and never heard back. And then also I took a recent class and emailed the instructor before the last class with a question and never heard back from her. Other than that, they are great.

My pup and i have completed two sets of classes at Ahimsa with several drop in sessions.
Trainers — every trainer I have met at Ahimsa has the passion and knowledge needed, as well as the training and certifications to back them up. Even during drop ins with a new trainer, they are quick to recognize and give helpful tips to improve the training for each pup.
Classes — depending on the class there are different ways they are organized and each trainer has their own style to add flavor to the curriculum. I enjoy the flexibility of being to drop in to the ongoing classes and learning different approaches and cues. The more knowledge the better! All of the classes are positive and carefully planned before hand.
Overall, these classes have been well worth the money for my pup and I.

We have been going to puppy kindergarten and using the puppy day camp as well. Both are fabulous and we have seen an extremely positive change in our pup for the better. The kindergarten is great for socialization for your puppy when it’s too young to go to dog parks. We’ve picked up a lot of training tips as well that we’ve been able to apply at home.
The puppy day camp has great trainers giving each pup personalized attention. We get a report card that helps us to determine what areas of focus we need to work on at home. The trainers are well informed and are very patient. Our puppy was extremely mouthy and had trouble with distractions, and after the puppy day camp she has reduced this negative behavior significantly.
Highly recommend!

Absolutely a life saver for me! I have went through four different classes so far and plan on taking more classes. Love the trainers, and very good at problem solving in multiple dog households. I have a wonderful pitty mix that I rescued that is very strong willed and driven. He has progressed by leaps and bounds by taking these classes! I’m so thankful for the knowledge I’ve learned from the trainers! I highly recommend this dog training facility for anyone! Thank you so much!

My dog has had an excellent experience at Ahimsa. The trainers are patient and knowledgeable. They really care about working with your dog in a positive and gentle manner. Highly recommended.

How much do I love Ahimsa and, in particular, puppy day camp? Let me count the ways! First, the trainers at Ahimsa are wonderful people. Caring, knowledgeable, funny… everything you want in a teacher for your dog, and (in my case), for your dog’s owner! I have asked what I thought were dumb questions and am always treated with respect and given thoughtful answers. We did the puppy kindergarten several times a week, which was awesome for humans and canines alike. We also did Puppy Day Camp which we LOVED. We have a toddler at home and needed some training and a break (stat!) and Ahimsa came through. Every day they worked with my pup on skills and do’s and don’ts — but always with compassion and positive reinforcement. Camp made a HUGE difference after even only one day with less biting and rough playing with our kiddo. Truly a godsend. I highly recommend day camp if you have young children at home! After a week of camp our house was happier: a tired and well-​behaved pup. I even asked for another week of camp for my birthday! We have two more weeks of camp booked before he turns five months and we will continue weekly kindergarten, and probably beyond. We just love Wynona, Amber, Frank, and Klara (and everyone else there). Thank you!

This place is legit! I’ve never owned a dog before, while my boyfriend grew up with dogs. This place helped the both of us learn how to train and interact with our puppy. We have a puggle who mostly behaves like her beagle side, and as stubborn as she is, many of what we learned is useful today. The trainers are attentive and available if you have specific questions. You also get an informative and ready to understand training manual. I enjoyed the time we spent learning here.

Refund /​cancellation policy is really lousy. I tried to cancel in the first week of the class starting as my work schedule changed which made getting to the classes impossible. I asked for compensation but ended in an endless email loop in which I was eventually ignored. I even just asked for a leash at some point and was denied. I payed $ 200 and received absolutely nothing in return. That’s bad business, I don’t care what your policy is – and it’s bad as well.

This review is for puppy kindergarten only. We didn’t have a great experience because our puppy is too small for all sizes but too big for small breeds, so every class it felt like a struggle to find a playmate for him because they insist on matching sizes. This is despite him being both very gentle with small puppies and tolerant (and not afraid) of larger puppies.
They don’t seem to take what the puppy actually wants into account, I would also say they seem too breedist and they end up missing out on some great play couples, because of their insistence on 3 groups of 2 — 3 puppies instead of everyone playing.

Basically they insist on making a few play groups with like sized puppies. Sometimes energy plays into it too. If your dog doesn’t play well with the puppy you’re with — tough luck. Generally they’ll try to move one puppy, but we had a few sessions where no play happened with our puppy at all because he wasn’t a good match with the other sized puppies.
They are too over-​protective of the puppies, as well in terms of micro-​managaing the play style. For dogs that are shy with other puppies, of course special accomodations need to be made or for toy puppies who are just so fragile. I don’t see the point of segregating everyone else though or for giving constant timeouts for normal roughhousing when both puppies are enjoying the play.
If your puppy likes to wrestle, don’t come here. If your puppy is on top wrestling for 3 seconds he gets a time out, so you will constantly have to pull your puppy off the other puppy even when both are clearly having a good time and the mouthings are very gentle. Your puppy will learn being on top of wrestling is bad, as a result our puppy is VERY hesitant to wrestle on top and only likes to be on bottom since coming here. Obviously he didn’t make the connection that being on top for more than 3 seconds is not ok but being on top in general is so he thinks that being on top in general is not allowed anymore *sigh*.
My puppy has spent a ton of time at puppyworks where they don’t split off puppies except for special circumstances which I greatly, greatly prefer. It’s too hard to predict who will want to play with who. It;s also important for puppies to experience small amounts of stress so that they can learn. For example my puppy wasn’t confident telling other puppies off, but after playing with a larger puppy it started to learn ‘hey I have to tell a puppy when I don’t want to play anymore’. Also my puppy is not afraid of larger dogs because he’s played with both larger and smaller puppies, whereas a few puppies at ahimsa were clearly afraid of larger puppies (and not huge) because they’ve never played with them. Also he’s learned to be gentle with smaller puppies (and in general) through experiences particularly experiences where he gets told off and play stops. He would never get these experiences if play was always perfect and hyper-​managed by a person.
The training is also strange too, there isn’t much coaching of the owners at all. At another class I took, the trainer came around to each person to see how it was going. I heard an owner yelling at their puppy several times over several classes and the trainer never said ‘that’s not a positive method, it works better to say ‘oops’ and deny affection instead of yelling’. I noticed owners doing other things that aren’t generally recommended anymore like saying ‘good sit’ after a sit. They expect you to read the training book and coach yourself — but the classes should be to refine your coaching skills too not just to play with puppies.

We’ve been coming to Ahimsa for puppy kindergarten class with Wynona and Rachel. I’m so glad we did! Our pup loves play time, he loves learning in class, and we love working with him. His first couple classes were rough, he was very shy and new to our home. By the 3^rd class he was pulling us through the door so he could play.
Now, he loves everyone. I’m sure at least part of it is because of all the socialization we get in class and the training we do with Wynona and Rachel. We highly recommend puppy class for any new owner.

This one size fits all basic manners class was not appropriate for our recently rescued terrier. It was extremely stressful for him and us. An intake and evaluation of his needs and current situation would have been very helpful. Instead, we spent way too much money getting very little in return. It would’ve been great if the instructor, Amber, had at least recognized our situation and offered some recommendations. But instead, like an ill behaved kindergartner, we and our little dog were at best tolerated, and at worst, ignored. Very disappointed.

The Fear & Aggression 101 class changed my entire approach/​interaction with the dogs that I walk and care for. I am now so much more aware of how every behavior and response holds boundless significance. I am excited to begin reading the book that was provided and to take more classes. I haven’t trusted any other trainers as much as I do Ahimsa’s!

I have been very pleased with Ahisma, especially their puppy day camp and the private training with Amber. My service dog was attacked by a group of kids in hoods and she became very anxious and barking at everything. Amber was successful in restoring much of her confidence and greatly reducing her barking before her sudden death.
Puppy day camp was a lifesaver for me as I started training a new service dog, My only regret is that it filled up so fast, I couldn’t purchase more weeks for my puppy. She got lots of attention and got a solid head start on her training. even some elementary building blocks for for service dog task training. They really tailor the experience to the individual puppy’s need.
We also did puppy kindergarten there. It is important to realize that some of their classes are ongoing classes and some are series classes. Kindergarten is ongoing, you pick the 6 dates you want reserved and you can sit in on other dates that have openings. Students vote on the subtopics covered while the instructors have a 6 week rotating main topic. What does that mean? You may get 3 classes on «come» and no classes on «anti jump“Unlikely but possible. Other classes have a set start and stop date with a set curriculum and there is no ability to switch dates to match your schedule like the ongoing classes. Some people love the flexibility, other people are frustrated by the unpredictability of what are we doing today.

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Updated Review for Private Training with Amber
We finally bit the bullet and hired Amber for a private session to help our little Percival on his rude behaviors towards other dogs.
She went out with us in our neighborhood and demonstrated how to regain control of his attention when he starts to get rowled up. Then she let each of us practice refocusing him in various situations. We realized it was more us then our pup. As a nervous wreck that I am, Amber honed in on my anxiety and showed me step by step as she guide me through each scenario. We look forward to showing Amber our progress at our next session. We wish he had her skills and knowledge. We feel so lucky to have Amber in Percival’s life.
Thank you AMBER!!!
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Ahimsa has been a god send for our fur baby.
With both of us unexpectedly working crazy schedules we were worried that he would be all alone for 4 – 6 hours a day in his Kennel. We wanted a structured, safe and fun environment for our little boy to grow and their puppy day camp was perfect for him. He quickly gained new friends. He enjoyed «going to school» every day and was greatly disappointing when the weekend came. Class sizes are small to give personalized attention to each pup.
We give Amber or Frank the amazing teachers 4 items we want them to work on with him every weekend and every day we received a detailed report card on his progress. They also comment his socialization activities and new friends.
Our baby loves his teachers. We couldn’t ask for a better program (except we wished it was on Fridays also!!)
Thank you Amber and Frank for taking such great care of our little boy.
* We would have given them 5 stars however they are located in an industrial park and when they take our boy out potty he sometimes get industrial material in his tummy. We know they cannot watch all 5 puppies’ mouths while they’re outside training but it caused us several headaches. However, it wasn’t bad enough we never went back WE LOVE AHIMSA!

I have a giant breed puppy that «sized out» of other puppy play groups so I thought I would take him to Ahimsa since they don’t have weight restrictions. Big mistake.
The room is divided into sections dependant upon size of dog. Makes sense, but at first they left my dog all alone even though there was another large breed puppy there and she was roughly the same size. They «realized» and moved her over with my puppy. They’d play nicely, meander about and then play a little more. All fine and dandy, until another puppy was added to the mix.
A medium sized puppy came late and was put into the medium sized group. This puppy was unruly, had poor dog communication skills and didn’t respect other puppies’ boundaries. The trainer told the owner that it would need to try and play with the «big» puppies because it was too assertive for the medium sized ones. And if that didn’t work, she’d have to work on training with it.
Mind you, my puppy has been to many play groups and has a lot of puppy friends of all sizes and I have never had an issue. This new puppy continuously jumped at my puppy’s face and did not respect the boundaries that my puppy tried to put up. He would turn and walk away, he’d give a menacing growl, but the new puppy wasn’t listening and continued with it’s behavior. The trainer was working with another group and failed to see all of this, but, of course, saw when my puppy had finally had enough and lunged with his teeth bared. The owner of the unruly puppy freaked out, scooped up her puppy, kept saying «I’m sorry, I’m sorry» to her puppy and looked at me as if I had this horrible, aggressive dog even though she was warned about her puppy’s behavior.
I took a time out with my puppy to let him calm down and then let him go back to playing with the other large puppy. The trainer stayed to supervise and kept rewarding my puppy for walking away and making right choices, which is what he had done all along, she was just too busy to see it. This scenario kept playing out over and over again, but the trainer still did not ask the owner of the other puppy to leave, even though she was told ahead of time that it may not work out. I didn’t understand this at all.
After 20 minutes of dealing with this I decided it was time to leave, put a harness on my puppy and the trainer saw me, not realizing I was leaving, and told me that it was great that I was harnessing MY dog for the rest of playtime. As if my dog were the problem.
We had a much better time playing outside waiting to go in. He would play bow with the little ones and get all wiggly and happy, but I was treated as if I had a problem puppy, when clearly wasn’t the case. My puppy was set up for failure which is rule #1 of what not to do and I will not be going back.

I highly recommend Ahimsa! We recognize Ahimsa dogs everywhere we go, and in turn, people often ask me if Casey is an Ahimsa dog.
Casey, my exuberant goldendoodle, is 3 ½ years old now, but he’s been attending Ahimsa classes off and on since he was 8 weeks old. Ahimsa gave him a great start with puppy classes and supervised play times that provided him with social skills; their positive approach to training has given him a joyful eagerness to learn that continues to this day. Because of Ahimsa Casey has grown into a confident, happy, loving giant who is welcomed everywhere we go.
The Ahimsa trainers have given me the skills to continue with Casey’s training on my own even when we can’t attend classes for a time. That said, there is nothing quite like physically attending Ahimsa classes with other dogs and their people. We learn as much by watching the trainers working with other dogs, giving tips and techniques, as we do when they’re working directly with us. The experience of training in a room with other dogs and people present is invaluable (great impulse training practice!).
The schedule structure is fantastic and the fact that you can drop in to other ongoing classes as space permits – for free! – makes their packages a great deal. The big space gives everyone plenty of room to move and their equipment is first rate.
As we all know, continuing education is important… we, and our dogs, are never «finished products,» learning is a lifetime process. We will continue to return to Ahimsa for classes – refreshers as well as to learn new things… I hope you will, too.
My only wish for Ahimsa classes is that they continue with their excellent teaching and that they consider adding new classes along the way (dance!), maybe even some certification classes (eg: CGC, CGCA, Therapy Dog, etc.)

I don’t generally post reviews, but this one is for anyone with a smart reactive high drive dog. Our experience at Ahimsa ultimately set us up for a complicated training recovery.
Our lovely dog is border collie-​standard poodle mix, and as our new trainer said, «She’s a Ferrari not a Mini-​Van» and we have needed to learn how to drive.
We went to puppy class when she was 2 months old, had one private session and went to a few puppy play times. She grew up around lots of dogs (at a breeders,) but the group puppy classes weren’t at all appropriate for her. She went into a barking frenzy every time we walked into class, and ultimately her anxiety, barking and dog aggression increased.
We hired an Ahimsa trainer because she started barking like crazy whenever a dog walked by our house, and started refusing to let us put on her collar. It took her 20 minutes of trying with treats to get it on her. And that didn’t change. She didn’t want to go outside where she felt unsafe ~ and clearly she couldn’t rely on us because we made her go to that scary puppy play group and couldn’t really handle her in that environment, especially as she began to get so much larger than a lot of the other dogs.
When she was in drive (demonstrating barking and lunging) no amount of «high value treats» were going to work. In those situations there’s no cognition and she/​we had no skill available to us, and the trainers were not able to teach us or her how to manage anything, and in fact the groups set us up for failure.
We are working with a great trainer now. It takes time, commitment and a willingness to build your own skill as a handler to work with some breeds/​mixes, whether they are a new puppy or adult rescue. I encourage you to learn to work with your dog IN DRIVE and you can do it without luring and bags of treats. We rarely use any treats in training anymore and she is more than happy to work with us.
My guess is that there are plenty of dogs that would probably be easily socialized anyway that can learn a few things from the puppy classes. But you could probably watch You Tube KikoPup videos and learn plenty about clicker training.
If you have a reactive and/​or aggressive dog and have the commitment and time to invest, then contact Packworks in Arlington. They live this work and know their stuff. We are deeply grateful to have found them.

They are great here with dogs that don’t need help. Our dog was even used as an example dog for a problem dog that was scared of other dogs.
We are in our third class so far have taken Puppy Kindergarten, Puppy Jr. High, and now we are enrolled in Controlled Unleashed + BAT 1.
Take advantage of the free drop in classes we love the outdoor sports and games (which lets you know if your dog can do agility and is a great workout for them!)
The problems I have is the uncontrolled kids poeple have in the class (if you can’t control your kid should you really bring them to class? The kids running around the room while we are trying to teach our dog skills, and dangling toys in front of the dogs during playtime should be corrected but it wasn’t.), and the clear plastic bags of treats… Treats should be in a treat bag at you hip and ONLY for your dog if you feed my dog treats during puppy play time not only does he loose out on socialization he will be jumping on you for more treats. Also all treats should be prepared before class my dog, and other knows what a crinkling bag means if you can afford a class here you can afford a $ 10 treat bag…
So bottom line go to class if you can follow the rules and have time for the homework. If you have a smart puppy that learns quickly this is a good starting point. We are taking ours elsewhere for agility they don’t offer a good class for that.