Virginia Dare

WARM & WONDERFUL!! I would recommend Virginia Dare to anyone who has any type of dog training need. She is professional, warm, easy with pets and children as well as adults. Virginia is non-judgmental, patient, attentive and truly loves animals. Her pricing is reasonable and if I have any future needs, I am going back to her! There are levels of training - even if your dog is already good with basic commands, she can get him/her and you to the next level. I have a rescue who had a number of behavior problems (jumping, nipping, uncontrolled enthusiasm) - much of this is related to his age, but Virginia gave us tools that reduced and even eliminated his poor behavior. Training approach - Rewards-based (although there are alternative methods she will work with you on if you'd like). Technique - Praise / non-responsive to poor behavior (no military-style approach!) Responsiveness & Availability - Any question I had I was able to ask her either during the training session or in follow up (email or phone). Virginia's goal was to ensure we were getting the behavior we wanted to see. Whenever I had to reschedule a training session, she was very flexible and understanding. Overall character - Virginia is someone I'd love to call a friend - she is warm and friendly and is kind and consistent with everyone! I'd though my children (both 9) would be 'in the way', however, Virginia included them in the training sessions and it was great! My daughter became very skilled in training our Ivan. Virginia is very gentle with everyone and has a refreshingly open view of living with dogs. Follow-up - Virginia always followed up after each training session to ask if there were questions. She provided detailed reference for us that we could review and more deeply understand the 'why' of the training. She did explain everything during the training, but it was very helpful to have written material to refer to afterwards. - Brewster, NY