Professional Dog & Puppy Training

5/5 stars November 21, 2012

Recently I had the privilege of being trained by Tom, K9Katelynn. He worked extremely well with our three different dogs: different breeds, sizes and personalities. I guess that could be said of myself, my brother and son. Tom trains the entire family. The training felt uncomfortable at first, but I opened my self and trusted him. In fact, I had some physical health issues that Tom worked into our training for my safety. I am so glad I did this training with K9Katelynn. One of my dreams was to be able to walk my pit-boxer mix in the park without her lurching at birds, ducks, little kids running around and etc. Now, it is a pleasure to walk with ease and confidence. After having three really bad trainers I was skeptical. Wow...I am so glad that I picked up K9Katelynn's business card at my Vet's Office in North Phoenix. I know my vet would not recommend just anybody. That says a lot in itself. Tom was patient although we were not at times. I never felt rushed. In fact, although our sessi

Ira S.

5/5 stars August 8, 2012

We trained our dog, Dexter, with K9katelynn in the spring of 2011. He had aggression issues towards other dogs, some people and getting hard to control in general. This made of very sad b/c we feared that we wouldn't be able to do the stuff we had hoped to do with our dog. These include going to the dog park, hiking, camping and just generally taking him anywhere dogs are allowed. I'm happy to say that a year and a half later, Dexter, is exceeding our expectations of what we thought was possible and has become a great dog. After our 8 weeks w/ Tom, we con't his training everyday for 6 months and now incorporate it into our everyday life. We recently took him to San Deigo to play at the beach and go to Balboa Park. He did great and alot of strangers complimented us about how well behaved he was and how nice he walked on his leash. The training was expensive and incredibly time consuming but was worth it. We always viewed the cost as an investment in the lifestyle we wanted our dog and us to have and I'm excited to say we acheived this.

Jill L.

1/5 stars July 13, 2012

First of all, it should not be called K9 Katelynn; K9 Crook sounds more appropriate.
We recently hired Tom to help us with our mutt that we adopted from a rescue. We were having a few issues that we wanted to address: leash pulling and fear/aggression issues. At the initial consultation, he had a laundry list of all of the potential issues a dog can have, and made us believe that our dog may have these problems as well. This added to the number of sessions we would “need,” most likely making the training lengthy and more expensive. He did a great job of selling us his training skills. I regret ever agreeing to working with him, but we had no idea what his methods were like prior to signing the contract.
The first session consisted of a lot of talking and no training. You basically have to listen to him talk about why his methods work and why he is so good at what he does. He will constantly say he is known for his mental stimulation training, only because he tells you to buy mental stimulation toys. Anytime you do any training with a dog it is going to stimulate them mentally. If you like to be told what to do, and if you like to be talked to condescendingly, then Tom is your guy. He says all his clients take pages of notes during his sessions, but only because he constantly tells you to write down what he is saying, and he watches you write it down before he continues – as if you were in elementary school. As other reviews had mentioned, he does not listen to you nor does he remember anything you say. Don’t try questioning his methods because he is quick to respond in a vague and passive aggressive manner.
The next couple of sessions it was more of the same - I kept wondering if the quality of the training was going to improve. I desperately wanted it to, given that he charges so much. He will critique everything you do and if you don’t do it exactly the way he wants it, he corrects you like you are the dog and then he will probably tell you to write it down. He also really lacks professionalism: for one of the sessions we had, he was over an hour late from the time agreed upon. When we called him (and we had to call him to ask if he was still coming, he didn’t call us to say he’d be late), he said he would be there in a few minutes and was getting off the freeway. From where he was, it would have still taken him 30 minutes to get to where we live. He would have then been an hour and half late from the original scheduled time, so we rescheduled. When I brought this up, he said he called us, but I can show you the caller ID: we called him.
I was starting to get annoyed at the fact that we kept doing the same things every week (basic obedience like sit, down, wait) and saw very little improvement with our dog because she had already known these commands from previous training. He kept saying it takes time to build up to the issues, which I do agree with. I should mention that we have met with a few other trainers and they said that she had all her basic obedience skills, and would not need much training to solve her issues – only a couple of sessions.
I think it is good that Tom works with dogs because he is lacking in people skills. Maybe he needs some training for that. During the final session we had with him, our fearful dog was even more fearful than she was before. He worked with her for 30 minutes and there was no improvement in her fearful behavior. She pretty much regressed from all the training we put in with her. He couldn’t even get her to sit, which most trainers probably could do after a couple of minutes with a dog they’ve never met. When I finally questioned everything he was doing and brought it up to him, he was very quick to make excuses. The discussion went nowhere. I got very frustrated to the point where I accused him of taking our money. You would feel cheated out of your money if you paid for something that fell quite short of your expectations.
We knew by the fifth session that the training was ineffective and going nowhere in helping with the specific issues we originally hired him for. When we asked him about this, he replied that he was helping us with that laundry list of problems he asked about at the initial consultation – however, most of that list were things he came up with himself and NOT specifically what we hired him to do. He had even added house training to this list when we had never mentioned it at all (our dog has never had a problem with this).
Sorry for the length of this review, but I really want to make sure our dissatisfaction with Tom’s services is known and that you are not fooled into working with him. We completely agree with the other negative reviews you might have read; the problems with Tom are corroborated. I wish I would have put more trust into those negative reviews, because their experiences were exactly the same as ours. Tom did mention on the way out the door that he had three hundred reviews online (mostly on his own website, some appear to be written by himself, definitely not three hundred – check!, and some written by other nearby businesses and not clients), and that if I write a negative review about him it would not matter to him. Please do your due diligence before hiring him. I hope this review does help in making your decision before you agree to be cheated out of your money the way we were.

Scott K.

5/5 stars November 20, 2011

From:Animal Health Services of Cave Creek, AZ. It pleases us to know that there are reputable trainers that promote positive reinforcement training. You certainly know what you are talking about! We recommend K9Katelynn!

Melanie H.

5/5 stars May 16, 2010

My biggest problem with my cocker spaniel was not being able to keep the dog in the house…and he was unable to sit, wait, place, and come, after proper training the dog now stays in the house without problems, my dog can now can sit , place, wait and come on command…….I felt the training time was constant and about right. I would recommended k9katelynn and can be contacted via phone upon request.
Mary E…..Cave Creek 3/1/10

Mary E.