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"Molly"

Molly is a Boxer from Burnaby

Featured in 12, 2003

Molly's Story:

Molly and Jackson were relentless in their pursuit of intimidating any dog or person as their combined weight of 163 pounds lunged and strained to get closer to their object of interest. Occasionally, some brave soul would ask (from a distance) "Are they friendleeee?" Dave and I could never comfortably answer that question, as they were unpredictable.

The behaviors of this gruesome twosome baffled us and resulted in a strained love/hate relationship toward our dogs. We loved their friendliness and playfulness in the privacy of our home but hated the public display of such unruly and uncontrollable dogs. Not only did the dogs behave aggressively in public, we also went through aggressive and physically draining antics to restrain the dogs. Eventually our walks were planned around avoiding people and dogs. Unless we could stop the out of control behavior of Molly and Jackson they were destined to become couch potatoes.

Over the past four years we enrolled the dogs in numerous obedience and agility classes and bought various types of dog restraining apparatus. For the most part these measures only worked when Molly or Jackson decided to humor us. Whenever an unfamiliar dog or person came in sight they acted as if they had never had any training and did not mind the choking of the leash as long as they got to whatever they focused on. We were at the point of vowing to never own another Boxer.

We were convinced that they could never be trained to the level of obedience that would be consistent and reliable in all and every situation.

Then along came Jeff's van with a picture of a Boxer advertising his "dog training for the real world". We were curious to meet someone who had the confidence and courage to use a Boxer as advertisement for OBEDIENCE training.

Jeff came to our home and demonstrated his confidence in his training methods by taking Molly to a busy park across the street. After 10 minutes of working with her he went over to a group of people watching a baseball game and told her to sit. To our amazement Molly calmly sat as people came over to pat her. Jeff's brochure states immediate results but we could not believe our eyes.

From that first training session Dave and I have been rewarded many times with how responsive our dogs have been to Jeff's training methods. Molly and Jackson have surpassed our initial goal of obedience on leash as we now can take them anywhere, off leash, with the confidence that we can count on them to listen to us no matter what distractions are around.

Walks now are fun and relaxing. People we meet on walks have commented on how impressed they are with Molly and Jackson's obedience. But most importantly Molly and Jackson have more freedom and a better quality of life as a result of Jeff's training.

Dave and I highly recommend the unlimited off leash training sessions. This is the only way to train your dog. We regret time and frustration that we inflicted on ourselves and our dogs with other yank and pull type of obedience training. Jeff is always available to answer any questions or to demonstrate proper training techniques.

The unlimited park sessions are great places to teach our dogs to listen and respond to the commands even with distractions. Unlike any other obedience class, Dave and I are also learning more about what triggers various behaviors in our dogs and how their body language communicates their reaction to a situation.

With Jeff's instruction we learn how to calmly and consistently use the appropriate command to get our dogs attention and obedience. The obedience commands, we are taught, have truly become tools of communication between our dogs and ourselves.