The Happy Retriever

I had a very bad experience, the trainers could not read canine body language and insisted on a prong collar for fear related issues. Please consider the source of your dog’s problems and consider a trainer who is more educated in body language. The «expert» didn’t even look up from the paper long enough to see that her training partner was severely offending my dog by leaning over a gate and crowding her. They made a number of mistakes that I would expect to see only from people who are intentionally trying to upset a dog and cannot tell that it is working, not good, or do not know simple canine cues such as yawning, whale eyes, and pacing. They also were unable to define a simple term and used it in a creative way as compared to other more prestigious trainers such as Leerburg.

Our experience at Happy Retriever with our rescue, Dude, was fantastic! He was very leash reactive on walks, which made taking him out for walks pretty challenging. I was afraid that he was an aggressive dog and didn’t know if I could ever take him anywhere. We tried Happy Retrievers on a recommendation from a friend. Their trainers are incredibly knowledgable and their reward-​based training is extremely effective. Their focus is establishing the owner as the alpha and a level of trust on both sides. Their evaluation of Dude let me know that he was not an aggressive dog, but reactive because he was frustrated by the leash and wanted to play. Just that assessment gave me such peace. We LOVE Michael and Dorothy. Dude greets them as enthusiastically as he greets us. He loves «going to work» there. When we started, Dude was walking us, pulling on the leash etc., now we are walking him. Happy Retriever’s services meet every need you could possibly have with your dog. After you graduate from the program, they offer free leashed trail walks on Saturdays to help you and your dog continue to practice what you learned. They stick with you and train you, the owner, as much as they they train your dog, which is the secret to success. After graduating the program, we still go for Bump Up, or refresher days because Dude loves it and gets a lot out of it. Dude is still a bit reactive on the leash, but after the program, I am properly trained to correct him the right way and every walk we take gets better and better. We both learned what we needed to for success. There is also a store on premises for products that you can trust for your dog. We got Dude a couple of chew toys for his birthday that have become his favorites. I highly recommend the Happy Retriever for any of your training needs.

My wife and I rescued a hound dog puppy who had issues from the start. Not only was she sickly when we firs took her home (our vet helped us with that), but she was extremely skittish — we don’t know if she was abused or if she just wasn’t socialized, but either way, she was very frightened by strangers. It was to the point where she would absolutely flip out at the sight of people other than my wife or myself, or urinate herself out of fear. She also was not very obedient, but our main concern was the way she went into barking fits at the sight of other people. We took her to another trainer that didn’t help us at all, the other trainer (Master Peace in Franklin — don’t go there) wasted our time and money with cookie-​cutter, «give her a cookie for being good» hippie training, but then we found Happy Retriever, and Mike and Dorothy did amazing work with us, and now our dog, while still nervous around people that she doesn’t know, is much less reactive and is more obedient to us than before. The first thing Mike did was test her to see if she would bite him, and luckily she did not, she just cowered away. Then we went through a very effective training class in a small group of three dogs (whereas Master Peace had is in a group of about 10 dogs), and we learned many techniques to become our dog’s Alpha, which was a key to making her trust people that we trust. She’ll probably never be the dog that wags her tail and gets all happy to see new people, but at least now she warms up to people we introduce to her more quickly, and is nowhere near being out of control. The other trainer didn’t even help us establish dominance over our dog. Mike and Dorothy at Happy Retriever made that step #1 to saving this dog. In addition to their training, they also offer walks for free and consulted us for free. They genuinely care about the dogs that they train, they are not just a money-​making outfit, they genuinely are out to help dogs like ours. Mike and Dorothy saved our dog.

My wife and I recently rescued a 4 month old Black Lab. We were in the process of researching where to take her for obedience training when one day I was at the bike shop and noticed The Happy Retriever in the same plaza. I checked out the website and liked what I saw so I emailed them. The lady who responded was very nice and helpful. I stopped in the following Saturday and talked to the owner, turns out it was his wife who had emailed me back. He spent over an hour giving me tips. The next weekend, I stopped back in to pick up some supplies, he gave me a lot of advice and actually talked me out of spending some money at his store. Very honest.
A few days later, we brought out puppy in for a free evaluation. They spent over two hour just with us, told us all the packages they offer, pricing and gave us some more advice. Our dog will be starting obedience training there within a couple weeks. The pricing was very reasonable for the classes and they really seem to know what they’re doing and care very much about doing a good job.
In addition to the obedience training, there’s a small store. They only carry products they really believe it that are made in the US. I found the prices to be pretty reasonable for a small store with all high quality products. I will be buying everything I can there and staying away from the big chain pet stores.