We do NOT recommend Kawa Farms for Board and Train. ($2,250!!) When we began our search for a trainer we asked around and received mixed reviews about Kawa Farms. However, after speaking with Jen we felt confident that Kawa Farms was the right choice. Unfortunately, we are disappointed in the end result. Overall, we feel like we lost 6 weeks with our puppy for minimal training. We were very clear with Jen about our expectations on multiple occasions. We asked that our 11 week old puppy not jump, learn general commands such as sit, stay, down and walking with a lead. We also asked that she be potty trained. We were told by Jen that this wouldn't be a problem. She informed us that our puppy would be living in the house with her due to her young age. We later learned that she only lived in the house for a short period of time and was then moved to the boarding kennels. We quickly realized that training was not going as planned. After 2 weeks at Kawa Farms our puppy had not learned one command. We were told by Jen that it was our puppy's fault and that she must have experienced some sort of trauma which is not the case. She offered to keep her for 2 additional weeks at no charge. We trusted in her process and agreed to the extended training. When our puppy completed the 6 weeks of training she could sit and come on command (only for a treat and using a clicker) and would sometimes lay down on a soft surface only. This is obviously not what we expected for the time and money spent. We feel like the failed attempts to train our puppy were always blamed on the puppy. Now that we have her at home we disagree with that assessment. She is very trainable and we have been able to teach her a lot. Jen informed us that she would follow up with us in 2 weeks at our home. We never heard from her. We sent her an email regarding our disappointment and received no response. Overall, we feel our puppy would have learned more in a general puppy class. read more

Jen and Taylor have done an amazing job training my daughter's Service Dog ! They are knowledgeable, honest and very easy to work with. I highly recommend them for any of your dog training needs! read more

Jennifer Hirakawa contacted me a few months ago to find out about service dog training (She wanted to become a service dog trainer) and ask for a trainer referral in eastern Iowa where I had moved from. I had never heard of her, so after our phone conversation I looked her up on the internet only to be shocked to see that she had copied, verbatim, large portions of my website and used it on hers without my permission! Specifically she copied the following paragraph in which I describe my training philosophy and services: "At Canine Connection, the emphasis is not about showing off how well controlled your dog is (although that will happen if you attend classes or private lessons and practice the exercises), but rather about developing a wonderful relationship based on effective communication that results in a well trained and voluntarily cooperative dog! It's about making that all important connection with your canine companion through positive reinforcement, not compulsion!" In this paragraph, which is my intellectual property she substituted her business name, Kawa Farms K9 Training for mine, Canine Connection. Additionally she copied whole sections of my website such as the section where I had posted select excerpts from the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior and the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists in the exact same format as it appeared on my website. She also copied, word for word several of my bullet points listing my qualifications, as well as the general format, including "Years of volunteer experience working with animal shelters and rescues..." and "Graduate of the rigorous and highly respected ..." In the latter she substituted Animal Behavior College for the Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Behavior and Training. She also copied a quote from Dr. Grey Stafford that I had on my home page with the bulleted list of my qualifications. I sent her two (2) cease and desist letters. She responded to the first by revising the section of her website where she copied the excerpts exactly as I had them on my website. After the second cease and desist letter where I specifically asked her to remove my original content (the above paragraph), she removed it but only paraphrased the work, using the same ideas and many of the same words, even replicating at least one of the same sentences! Ms. Hirakawa claims to be a member of the Truly Dog-Friendly Trainer coalition and states this right on her website, but her name is not listed: http://www.trulydogfriendly.com/blog/?page_id=4. She also claims to be enrolled in the Pat Miller Dog Trainer program but Pat Miller denies she is a student or ever has been! read more

This is absolutely the best training and boarding service available for your fur family. We have boarded our dogs with them and we were exceptionally pleased. We have also used their training services and plan on using them again in the spring! Experience and care. read more

Jennifer is a great person and a great trainer. She is a veteran of the military for 23 years and helps many of us wounded veterans with mental or psychical disabilities. She is very good at what she does and truly cares. Give her a call and check out her facility. Her trained dogs go all over the word. read more

I was given the gift of dog training for Christmas with Kawa Farms. I will not go anywhere else! Jennifer will travel to you for training and uses a gentle training technique. She has so much education and experience behind her and our dog took to her immediately. He was a puppy around 4 months old when we started and within our first hour she had our dog, Turtle, responding to his name, sitting, laying down, and starting with impulse control. I was not going to spend money on training and thought we would just do it ourselves from the internet and books...but we quickly learned that we were doing things incorrectly and causing confusion for our little guy instead of training him. Our dog is a husky, so we were very concerned about teaching him how to walk on a leash as well and not pull. Jennifer is amazing with helping us train him. We've kept in touch since our training and plan to continue with Jennifer. Although we have not started and she's unaware of us planning to continue training with her after summer, she has been amazing with responding to us with any questions or concerns we have with our baby. My mother bought us the training sessions after being referred by a family friend of ours who have a dog that was being aggressive towards cats and overall rude behavior. Jennifer/Kawa Farms came highly recommended from this friend who is pretty hard to impress. I was concerned when I saw the first rating on here, but quickly learned that it was from someone who has only given four ratings all around the same time frame in 2014, and has given nothing but 1 star ratings. I find it hard to believe every business you have interaction with is terrible unless you have a terrible outlook. I find the review unhelpful and unrealistic. This is a great company and has a great owner and staff. I was blown away with the background and professionalism from Kawa Farms and have recommended it to everyone we know with dogs. It truly is amazing how much you learn in the first hour with her, let alone a whole training course. We have had so many people compliment us on how well our hyper puppy is behaved and wish their animals were so polite. read more

Oh my goodness do I love Jenn at Kawa Farms. We've only been working with her for a few months but our experience so far has been AMAZING. She has gone above and beyond to help us out with our puppy, Max. She has been so patient with him and his stubbornness. :) She truly has a passion for providing the best training possible and I couldn't imagine going through anyone else for any of our training. She's been a lifesaver for us and I look forward to continuing our relationship with her. She's quickly becoming a part of our family! :) read more

When I adopted Lewie (formally Tac) from aHeinz he was 70lbs of terror---he was GREAT while we were home, but if we left he was crazy from severe separation anxiety. We are talking: break out of the wire kennel, rip the kennel apart, pee and stress pee ALLLLLLLLL over my floor then walked through which then resulted in poop and pee all over my walls, floors, rugs, sectional couch, pillows, kitchen counters, curtains, and windows; he even tried to dig a hole through a window and the front door. Before we met with jen he also ripped apart a second wire kennel, a plastic crate, and escaped a 5 x 5x 6 foot kennel and successfully opened a door and let himself out. Thank goodness for amazing neighbors. I was amazed within a WEEK (really even a day) how different Lewie was. Jen and Taylor are like dog whisperers! They are amazing. Lewie is not only a whopping 95 lbs now (he was underweight when we got him) he is sign language trained, verbal trained, impulse control trained, AND he is even fine all day in the house without being kenneled or crated. All thanks to jen! The best part is they train in your home. I find this super important because when a dog learns things in the home they are aware that the rules apply there unlike training in groups. I leaned so much from jen and I wouldn't go anywhere else. read more