Bark Busters North Atlanta

I had a wonderful experience with Ryan McPherson and Bark Busters. I highly recommend anyone use him for dog training of all sorts. My dog had lots of issues including not going willingly into her crate, eating food off the table, barking and just generally being the boss in our house. Ryan started his assessing and training before he even came in the door. He was extremely knowledgeable, patient and supportive. We went through his presentation and he answered all my many questions. Then we began the training– training me, not the dog! I saw great improvement in my dog even by time Ryan left and as I continued what he taught me, things have really changed in our house. I’m the boss now and my dog seems less anxious and much happier. I know I am! It was a real pleasure to work with Ryan.

You can tell Ryan loves what he does. He’s very professional, prompt and always has great advice for our puppy. Penny (our dog) responds well to him and his training methods. She gets better every time Ryan comes over for a visit. We learn something each visit too. We are thankful that we hired Ryan and Bark Busters to help us train our Australian Shepherd.

I am so very impressed with Ryan McPherson and Bark Busters! We have a pit mix and while he’s the most lovable and harmless dog, his bark sounds otherwise. We really wanted to work on controlling his barking and a few other small behaviors (doorbell/​answer the door behaviors, stair behavior, and proper leash behavior). After my first conversation on the phone, Ryan and I had set up an appointment for the following week. He arrived promptly and the training started the minute he walked in the door. He talked with us about the basics of dog behavior and how we needed to communicate with out dog. We spent the second half of the lesson actually practicing everything we had just talked about. In just that short of a time our dog was eagerly listening and responding to our commands. It’s been a few days since our initial lesson with Ryan and our dog is already showing HUGE improvements! He watches us to see how he needs to respond and he’s listening and responding to what we’re telling him. I’m so thankful to Ryan and Bark Busters for helping us get a good handle on how we needed to communicate with our dog to be able to train him properly.

I am a client of Ryan’s and have had a wonderful experience working with him and the Bark Busters system. Over the years, I have adopted dogs with behavioral issues, including aggression, and have therefore had to make myself extremely knowledgeable about dog psychology and different training methods. But even though I have a lot of experience to draw from, I was feeling over my head with the uneasiness my elderly dog was starting to have with my two small children. My vet had worked with and recommended Ryan so I gave him a try.
Everything this training method espouses is grounded in dog psychology and makes absolute sense. Much of my work with Ryan and my dog has been simply getting back to the basics (which for the typical dog owner would be learning them in the first place). What most people don’t realize is how crucial the fundamentals are to addressing behavior issues. And the reason for this has to do with LEADERSHIP. The dog wants to know who the leader is in your household– and there are lots of things going on that give him those clues. Is he the one who «answers» the door of your house (den)? Does he get fed before the rest of the family (pack)? Does he walk in front of you during walks, on the stairs, through doorways? We humans don’t read much into these things but our dogs read EVERYTHING into them. I knew so much of this already but working with Ryan made me realize how much I had let slip in the craziness that is daily family life!
So even though Ryan and I talked through the specific issues on how to handle my dog with my children, our lessons were focused mainly on reinforcing my leadership skills. My dog is old and some might think it”s crazy I’m doing (and paying!) for this training, but I know that I am getting the work I need to be an excellent leader for my next dog-​and every one after that! As Cesar Milan always says «I rehabilitate dogs. i TRAIN humans.»
Oh, and one last thing I want to say about this training that I think is fantastic: I love the BAH! This is a growl-​like command used for any unwanted behavior and it replaces our usual human tendency to say «No!» «Stop!» or the general «Hey, knock that off!”-type verbiage we can all fall into. We forget that even though dogs are smart and can learn these commands– human speak is not their language! But Bah (sounds like ahhh with a B and sharply delivered in a low throaty, growly tone) resembles a correction given by a dog pack leader and is instinctually recognizable to any dog. It took some getting used to at first, but now I can Bah like the strong, assertive yet loving pack leader my dog needs me to be!

I am very disappointed in my experience with Bark Busters. I came to Ryan McPherson in June of 2010 with a serious problem. I had a dog that was human and animal aggressive, and he was reactive. Ryan said he could handle this problem, but then only performed basic obedience training for 6 lessons instead of behavioral training. I purchased the life time service (much more expensive than bundled training packages with other local Atlanta trainers), so I figured that he needed to learn this stuff anyway. On the sixth lesson, Ryan decided that we were doing fine on our own. My dog was still showing serious signs of aggression and reactivity. I expressed my concern about not scheduling a revisit. Ryan said he would follow up with us the next month. I never heard from him again until just last week via email. I asked him for a partial refund because I have since learned that using negative reinforcement on a fear aggressive dog is not beneficial, and therefore will not be using his services again. He did perform 6 lessons for us though, so I didn’t think a full refund would be fair.
He did not address the refund until I posted a negative review of him on
. He then called and left me a voice mail about how a refund is definitely an option. But when we talked on the phone four hours later, he decided that a refund was not an option again because I had breached my contract by going to another trainer. Well, I am not sure why he even offered a refund four hours earlier because he knew through a couple emails days before that I had gone to another trainer.
I’d highly recommend looking elsewhere.