Tucson K-9 Learning Center

I’ve been taking my dog to Steve since he was a 10 week old puppy. He is six months now and the most well-​behaved, happiest dog I have ever owned. Steve is extremely clear and knowledgeable on how he trains and how you should be continuing training at home. I’ve been called on business trips several times these past months and Steve and his wife have been boarding my dog and training him while he’s there. I don’t trust my dog with anyone else.

I was in a hurry to find a place for my puppy to stay for the weekend because we had a death in the family and I needed to fly home. I scheduled a time to drop him off at their ranch, which is a 45 minute away after my test I had at one. The test ended up being much longer than I expected (pretty sure I failed it) and then I was having a breakdown because I’m not handling the death well at all. I just completely forgot about the appointment. Admittedly, I absolutely should have called, but Steve sent me a nasty and aggressive text message and called me an «asshole» for not calling him. I don’t care what the situation is, you do NOT call customers assholes and send aggressive text messages. I was going to leave my puppy with him for 10 days to do a mini board and train, but that’s obviously not happening. Don’t trust a man with your dog if he can’t even handle not getting a call back for a couple hours. There are many other trainers who are much more patient and kind.

I have just moved to Arizona from Georgia and we don’t have snakes and deadly toads there so the other night while walking my dog, we came upon a rattler of oh say 6 feet!!! Maybe less but seemed like more. Of course I freaked out and then my dog freaked out and then we both ran for the door. My stepmother said she saw a sign at a local vet’s office for snake avoidance classes. Well, of course I was all for it. Thankfully my dad paid, it was $ 75.00 for a half hour session. Steve Reaves has been doing it on Saturdays at the vet’s office throughout the summer. He was super nice, very informative on the hows and whys of the class. The idea is not that your dog hears the rattler (the one we ran into had 5 rattles and never made a sound) but that your dog smells it. He puts a shock collar on the dog, of course the voltage it set for the size of dog. He had my chihuahua approach his training snake (the snake’s head was in a box) but that rattle was going strong. When Sweetie got close adn sniffed the snake, he got a shock. The first one was mild, the next one got my dogs attention times ten. Once Sweetie got that message, he put the snake away and pulled out a Colorado River toad, also poisonous, it can kill your dog. He put it down and of course Sweetie went up to it and sniffed and she got another jolt, he did it twice and then told me to put her in her crate for an hour so she can calm down and the method can sink in. Well, we have to go back in 2 weeks to his place for a refresher and to make sure it worked but I can tell you now… IT WORKS! Not even a day later we were walking in the yard and came upon a 4 foot king snake (they don’t hurt you but still) I took Sweetie up to it and she sniffed once and jumped away. As we were walking to the back door she noticed something under the bench, it was either a baby rattler or a baby gopher snake but either way, she sniffed and jumped away. So, needless to say money well spent. She is vigilant in that she may sniff but she runs the other way which is the whole point. So, thank you to Steve and his son for a service that will pay off again and again in keeping my dog and me safe.