Total Recall

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Customer service is awful and Glen is absolutely rude. I was trying to obtain information about a class and my desire to register for it. I started by sending an email and received a response that did not even pertain to the class I was asking about. Sent another email and received a partial answer to my question. So then I started calling and finally got someone on the phone. Glen told me he sent me an email with all of the detail I needed to register for a class. I said, I'm sorry, but I did not receive that email. Could you please resend it. He refused to do this. He said that he had already sent out about 60 emails that day and wasn't going to send another one. Glen I'm sorry that you're so busy. If you keep treating your customers this way, maybe you won't have to worry about customer emails in your future.

I trained here for three years until we moved last year, and my mother trained here for nine years. Excellent overall. Everyone has occasional bad days, so I give people some grace. Overall it was an excellent experience. I had a Golden Retriever, and my mother has a German Shepherd. We have also trained a Papillon there. All of these dogs have been very successful and are very happy eager to please pets. The posters who complain about a dog being corrected and then crying forget that, like kids, dogs will sometimes throw a fit, sort of like a temper-tantrum, if they are corrected. What they also may have not observed is that the dogs often are "startled" by the correction; the most they would feel is a slight pinching sensation. And it is not used on small dogs, where a buckle collar is sufficient. All three dogs now use buckle collars primarily. You are encouraged to actually put both collars on and switch between them until the dog is very comfortable and well behaved on the buckle collar. Then you use that primarily. Lemon juice/breath spray is effective if the dog tries to bite another dog/person, or if they constantly bark/howl and will not stop. Those are the only occasional usage. It is not true that only negative reinforcement is used. Treats and praise are used more than negative reinforcement and are greatly encouraged. You only need to correct the dog if he/she purposely resists. Everyone needs to remember that dogs are opportunists, and are VERY intelligent. They are smart enough to act up. Same principle as stealing out of the garbage can after repeatedly being told not to, or as a kid stealing candy even though he/she knows better.

Again, all three dogs have done very well in Conformation, Junior Handling, Rally Obedience, and Agility. They have been very happy, and were always super excited to go back to training. So they didn't associate anything negative with it at all.


An excellent training place for our dogs.

While the trainer/owner may mean well, her practices can be harsh and out of date. While they state that their training is based on positive motivation, they use quite a bit of negative reinforcement. One dog was brought out before the group to show the owner how to handle her pet. The prong, pinch collar was jerked repeatedly while the dog cried. To stop the crying, the trainer put on gloves, forcefully opened the dogs mouth and tried to squirt lemon juice down the dogs throat. The first bottle didn't work, so she asked for another bottle while the dog was continuing to cry. Later Sue, the owner and trainer pointed out how the dogs ears and face were more submissive in response to her now. Is this creating a healthy success? This unfortunately is not positve motivation. We called to say we had differences in the methods and would like to withdraw from the class. Sue became hostile and extremely defensive. Very unprofessional and refused any type of prorated refund. Her methods are not recommended by the Council for Professional Dog Trainers - http://www.ccpdt.com/InfoForPetOwners.html



Also, the first day we spent 3/4 of the class discussing what could be purchased from their store - not the best use of handful of training sessions.

They are rude and very "My way or the Highway."

I use only positive reinforcement with my dog using a clicker. My dog is very well behaved and I was taking Total Recall's Obedience class solely because I wanted to take their agility classes. When asked if I could bring my clicker I was given a very short answer of "We don't use clickers here." The trainer would have walked away right then if I didn't stop her to continue our conversation. When asked why they don't use clickers she gave me contradicting answers. When I tried to explain to her how I work with my dog she very rudely explained to me that she has 30 years of experience, has trained 1000's of dogs, and knows what she is doing.



What bothers me the most is how she was telling me that praising the dog is OK but a clicker isn't. This tells me this woman knows very little about learning theory because both of those things -are- secondary reinforcers, they are both predictors of a reward, such as food (the primary reinforcer). These people also put prong collars on small dogs like a 9 month old papillon.



Prongs, chokes and e-collars are NOT training tools, they are management tools. They work by suppressing behavior, they do not teach the alternative behavior, i.e. the thing you want the dog to do. Once the tool is taken off the dog reverts to old behavior, thus the dog is not trained.



In short the people running this facility are rude and their methods are very outdated. I will not be returning. When I asked for a refund (I paid with cash minus the deposit) the owner did not have enough cash on hand so I have to wait for a check. Hopefully it comes sooner than later.