I can't recommend this place. The program cost a LOT of money, and kind of every step of the process was a red flag:
1) When we put in the address we were given, it was actually across the street from where we met Eddie and Jay. It's an unmarked front room at a Metal Works facility. There are no signs for their company anywhere. A banner is not expensive.
2) We were not allowed to see where the dogs were crated. Not in person, not in pictures. We were told this was because they had reactive dogs in the building at the time, which, sure, that's what your business does, but I need to know where my dog is going to be sleeping for the next 4 weeks. But, at this point we had already given him $4000 that wasn't refundable, so we went with it anyway.
3) When I brought up points 1 and 2, Eddie IMMEDIATELY got defensive that I was attacking his credibilty. His response was that he has a decade of experience and Red Sox players have used him for training. You need to be able to answer basic questions like "where is my dog sleeping" without taking it as a personal attack. I wouldn't be coming to you if I didn't trust your experience, but that is a normal question for someone to ask. Why would I possibly care that an athlete uses you for training?
4) There was no evaluation. We had a phone call with Eddie in advance to talk about our issues, but then had to pay him with no evaluation or in-person meeting. We dropped off our dog, and basically immediately were asked to leave.
5) We got almost zero communication in the entire 4 weeks he had our dog. My husband would text him and get literally no response, and I got a response maybe 60-75% of the time. I would get one sentence--"he's cool" or "he's doing great" or "it's going very good" with no further information. This went on for the first 3 weeks, and theoretically this was only a 3 week program. When I messaged him that we had heard almost nothing, I again got an incredibly defensive response.
Me 4:00 PM: "Hi! How is training going?"
Eddie 4:00 PM: "It's very good."
Me 4:02 PM: "Any progress on him being reactive?"
Nothing.
Me 4:22 PM: "We haven't heard a lot from you in the past couple weeks about what you're doing or what sort of progress there has been, so we'd like some sort of update."
Eddie 4:41 PM: "I'm sorry we update as requested. As far as training updates our training is done in stages. It's a process and we don't work on triggers till the communication is 100%."
OK BUT THIS IS A REQUEST FOR AN UPDATE. As had the last...6 text messages between us? We heard literally nothing unless we reached out, and when we did we often still didn't get any sort of response. For all we know, our dog has been sitting in a crate for the last 4 weeks, and we threw more than two months' pay down the tubes. "He's good" is not an update. I get that this is a 2 person organization, but you need to be able to communicate with people. That's like job #1 here.
6) The Loyal Hound website refers to a Denver facility, not a New Hampshire facility, and mentions a person named Corinna who doesn't work out of the New Hampshire site at all. Probably should correct the links or clarify what's going on there. I don't understand the distinction between The Loyal Hound and the Academy for Dogs and Etiquette Academy for Dogs. Who works at which? Is it just a name change?
7) When we picked up our dog, we didn't see Eddie at all, and worked with a man named Jay. Our dog was FILTHY--greasy, dirty, and he stank. We have a pitbull. He doesn't really need baths because he doesn't get greasy. What happened to him while he was gone? We worked with our dog and Jay for maybe an hour going over how to use a shock collar, and he acknowledged that our dog was pretty calm but could get overwhelmed and would get reactive. We did not discuss what to do when that happens because again they wanted us to work on communication, but after a follow-up meeting a week later we still never worked on any of his triggers or what to do when he freaks out.
So, ultimately, we paid $4,000 for a shock collar we don't even use anymore. Communication was not good, we didn't see any of the facility, and we don't have anything positive to say about our dog's change in behavior. read more
