Dog's Best Friend

Can't teach an old dog new tricks is proven wrong at Dogs Best Friend. We're not even halfway through the lessons with my 6year old Rottweiler and she's getting compliments on how well she behaves. She used to show a some aggression around food and would get over excited around particular dogs. Strongly recommend Chas and Dogs Best Friend.

When I met my girlfriend, she owned a rescue dog for a little over 2 years. Over the course of the first few months of our relationship I learned quickly of the aggression and disciplinary problems her dog had. After being abused and neglected before, I was adamant that if we plan on keeping her and attempting to live a normal life our best option is to enroll her in a serious training course. Knowing about Chaz and dogs best friend from friends of mine, I suggested this place and now that we finished our last session today, I can say with great confidence, it was the best decision we have made for us and for our dog. Walking in there on our first session with a dog that wouldn't sit still, growl, and act aggressive, to leaving our last session basically off leash, this has been an experience that I didn't think would be possible. Chaz knows his stuff inside out and backwards, and it definitely shows! If you are weary or questionable, I highly recommend taking the leap, you won't regret it!

Most folks just want support training their dogs, and are looking for a quick place to turn to. Many "trainers" have no credentials, and many dog owners don't realize this is important. If you're looking for effective dog training techniques, search for dog trainers in your area that have "CPDT" in their credentials (this business does not). Anyone who does not have CPDT is not a certified professional dog trainer.

This business uses over-corrective and aggressive approaches to trying to train dogs, which has decades of research against this type of technique. Not only does the dog not understand what you're asking of it, but you are likely to face more errors in the future, harming your dog, other dogs, and humans. Please research before coming here, and you can start with names like Chirag Patel, Patricia McConnell, and Karen Pryor.

The Wisconsin Humane Society also has great resources if you're not sure where to start. Good trainers have the dog's best interest in mind, and do not spend time bragging about how effective they are. Good trainers use evidence-based practices that pass boards, and this process grants humans the official training titles. Google terms like, "positive reinforcement" and "fear-free." In a society where you can have the best, you don't want to settle for anything less than the best. This place does not meet that need for you and your dogs.

I rescued my dog 3 years ago and she was abused by a man and attacked by a dog when I took her for puppy training. Because of these situations she became very reactive to everyone and everything and it only got worse. I brought her to Chas a couple months ago and as soon as we walked in she was growling at him and had very very low confidence. Over the time of our sessions Chas has given so much advice and answered every question of mine.

Last week I was able to take her to pet palooza with no negative contact dog interactions and today at our last session she was completely off leash and unfazed by Chas walking around. This is a complete 180 from the dog I brought it and I am just so happy to be on the right track to helping her gain confidence and not be reactive or aggressive! Couldn't have done it without Chas!

We came to Chas and Dog's Best Friend to help with our dog Buck who had problems with aggression after we rescued him. Chas outlines his process from the first meeting and we have seen incredible results over the course of the program. There is no magic wand to solve these problems, but Chas provides the tools for us to be able to be successful and we couldn't be happier with the results.

After our 1 1/2 year old Husky/Pit mix, named Kai, got kicked out of doggie day care, bit a puppy at the dog park, and attacked our other dog while eating. we knew we had to get serious about training. After trying (and failing) to do it ourselves by watching YouTube videos. we knew we needed professional help. I contacted a few dog trainers and Chas stood apart from the rest. Direct, clear instructions, and a long history of great reviews.

So we signed up. By our 2nd or 3rd lesson Kai was a different dog. He listened, submitted to us, and most importantly he hasn't had a single aggressive incident since we began Chas's training methods. What Chas has taught us not only helped Kai, but will help all the future dogs we bring into our family. We can't thank Chas enough. we HIGHLY recommend him to anyone looking to train and their pup!

Our association with Chas Rooney (Dog's Best Friend) began 30 years ago and he has trained all of our dogs since. The biggest benefit is that not only is the dog trained, but he shows the owners how to continue the training between lessons. Yes, it's a lot of work, but worth every minute. My favorite dog story could have had a very different ending if not for the training from Dog's Best Friend.

Our dog, Bert, had completed his training (3rd dog trained by Dog's Best Friend). We were visiting friends in a rural area & I was talked into letting Bert off leash. He immediately took off up their driveway and headed towards the highway and was out of sight in seconds. I hollered "front" (twice) & was just about to run after Bert when he came flying back down the driveway & fronted perfectly!

Even after over 15 years, I get very emotional to the point of tearing up whenever I tell this story. We moved out of the West Allis area several years ago & tried 2 local trainers for our current dog, Louie, before deciding we needed to return to Dog's Best Friend.

Love Chas! He gives a common sense approach to dog training. We had two previous trainers, that had an effect on Luci, but they never told us how to correct her aggressive behavior. He works to change our behavior. He is awesome! We would highly recomend Chas and Dog's Best Friend. Special thanks to Pizazz

My wife and I contacted Dogs best friend, along with many other dog training companies and trainers. Dogs best friend not only responded quickly, but also didn't discriminate against us or our dog due to the situation and her breed (pit bull). The problem we encountered with our dog Felicity, was reactive aggression. She had been abused by the woman of the household since she was a puppy, til about 1. 5yrs old, which is when we took her.

She was scarred, kept in too small of a cage which caused bad spinal curving, and she smelled pretty bad. So since we got her she was daddies girl, and although she loved mom too, it was dad who was the favorite. Well jump forward quite so time, and our other dog Triton was much older than Felicity and lacked dog social skills. Triton would be aggressive to Felicity, and eventually she reacted in aggression instead of fear and a fight would start.

Well one day a fight happened while my wife was home alone, and upon breaking up the fight, she had gotten bit, which required a hospital visit and weeks of healing. We decided to sign up with Dogs best friend for both our dogs, and it was definitely the best decision we could've made. Within weeks we saw a major change with both dogs, but unfortunately we lost Triton suddenly to cancer within a month of starting our training. Felicity has been a single dog since then and the training has helped her in more ways than one.

She's a different dog now and is enjoying life again since we started training her and losing Triton. Now I never thought we would have another dog but recently my wife decided to rescue another dog temporarily, because I didn't want to risk it. But Felicity and Oliver are progressing their relationship with each other in a way that I didn't know Felicity was capable of, and it truly brings joy and happiness to our hearts, so now once again we have two.

We firmly believe that Dogs Best Friend has given us the the ability to train our dog so that we all can get the best out of life with each other. We truly wouldn't be here in this moment if Dogs Best Friend hadn't been able to help us. We can't say thank you enough.

I wish I could write a good review. I thought the owners/trainers were terrible! My puppy had a bad experience at the dog park, and would get overly reactive with certain dogs, the male owner took my dogs leash to "show me what I should do" and basically shook him up and down repeatedly, and "gave a command." He also when on to tell us, that the dog that my own dog reacted to "was severely aggressive, and could have killed my dog." Um.if that's the case maybe the dog shouldn't be in a small 8x10 room with at least 7 other dogs!

During the same small group session, there was a lady about 55-60 years old that was sitting down, and the male owner/trainer made a very rude comment to the lady to "stand up and pay attention." I couldn't believe what came out of his mouth, so rude! I also remember on the demo, the female owner/trainer brought her dog to demo, and the dog wouldn't listen to her, and took her a few times to say it for HER OWN DOG TO LISTEN!

This place is way too expensive, I took nothing from the training, and truly don't believe that scaring a dog into submission establishes a trusting/and obedient dog in the long run, I personally don't want people to see me shake my dog up and down to have him "listen" to me! Please do yourself a favor and look AT ALL THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS about the place, with a review even talking about inappropriate touching, yikes! The owners response back to the bad reviews, shows disingenuous, defensive and terrible management/company reputation on their behalf!

Dog's Best Friend training is worth every penny! We came to Chas utterly frustrated and feeling as if we had made a major mistake. We wanted to save a life and we rescued a 6 month old severely neglected pitbull that was anxious, aggressive and a major handful. We were all miserable! Chas catered the class to address behavior and obedience. We took the 12 course session and by the second lesson we were seeing major progress.

It is work for both pup and humans, but you are set up to succeed if you devote the time and effort. Having finished our last lesson we now have a smart, well behaved and loving goofball that has totally wormed her way into our hearts! Chas also made us better dog owners by giving us the knowledge to continue to make her a better happier dog. We now have little fun companion we wanted. Laird, Jennifer and Belle say "Thanks Chas!"

We were taught the basics.sit, stay, come. We had the same experiences and feelings as others where group lessons seemed a waste of time. We stopped attending lessons that were paid for in advance because we weren't getting anything out of the group lessons. We also found them to talk out of both sides of their mouth so to speak. Example, "get your dog socialized using the dog parks, friends, doggy day care, etc." Only to be warned of the dangers of doggy day care and the dog park months after that conversation.

Very confusing for new dog owners. There isn't a set curriculum. Friends who have taken their dogs to other trainers have had more regimented classes with better outcomes. Disappointed that we purchased the large package. In retrospect, we would have been better off with private lessons only. We did learn a lot; however, in my opinion $500 was a lot of money to spend on sit, down, stay and come commands.

We brought our 7 year old boxer mix here to sharpen his listening skills. He hadn't been through any formal training before. He wasn't reactive or anything, but he listened when he felt like it and we wanted to change that. After our solo and group lessons, we noticed a HUGE change in him. He now listens significantly better on and off lease. He also seems a lot happier knowing we are happy with him. I would recommend the trainers here to everyone!

My family has had two dogs trained by Dogs Best Friend and one is currently being trained by Samantha. My dog is 1.5 years old and we recently adopted him. We came to Dogs Best Friend for obedience training. Not only is he becoming more obedient, he seems to be more comfortable in our home and more trusting. I am continuously amazed at how attentive, personable, knowledgeable, and thorough Samantha is.

I wouldn't want to have my dog trained by anyone else. Thank you, Sam, for your time and attention with my dog! I appreciate everything I've learned from coming to lessons and also from seeing you interact with your dog.

This is our 2nd dog trained by the best dog trainers! My first dog was trained by Chas and he did a perfect job turning my aggressive dog into a well behaved perfect dog to have as a pet! I have had dogs that don't listen don't know how to come and run out the front door every chance she had! And WOW is it wonderful to have a dog that listens to you!

We just got another dog, Louie who was very scared and aggressive in a different way, and Louie needed to be trained also. So my first call was to Dogs best Friend. Samantha is training Louie and it has only been 3 wks and already my dog has learned so much. He is not aggressive anymore, he listens, sit means sit, come means come! He even rings a bell to go outside! I am so greatful I have found Dogs best friend. Thank you for all that you do for our pets!

At the end of my training, my dog new how to sit and stay and come as well as a few other commands like "heel" and "down". They gave me tips on how to teach my dog to do these things and then we did "homework" at home to get better at it. I'm happy I did it, and the staff was very nice. But the hard sell to get the platinum package (5 private + 10 group lessons) with full payment up front is something I would have done differently if I had known better.

After the first couple of private lessons, the trainer had more of a "so what do you want to learn now" attitude. I wasn't sure how to react because I thought they would have a plan all laid out for each session and an objective for each, based on the initial assessment that I had with my dog. There were some awkward moments where I wasn't sure what to work on and neither was the trainer.

I suppose that was my fault - but that's when I started thinking that maybe I didn't need all of these lessons that come in the very expensive platinum package ($595 was on sale for $495). That ended up being a lot of money for what I received. The group sessions were unfortunately more disappointing. It was good for the first 2 or 3 of them to get my dog acquainted to other dogs and to listen to me with other dogs and humans in the room as a distraction.

At least I think that's what the point was - there was no real explanation of what was supposed to be happening in the group sessions - no talk of "here is what we are trying to accomplish.". There were 6-8 of us in a room with our dogs and we worked on sit and down and stay and then walked around a little, using come and heel trying to avoid the others' space.

After the third group session, a couple of us looked at each other like "Is this all we're supposed to be doing?" There was no real instruction taking place - the trainer would just walk around and pet/play with each dog and ask how things were going. This was fine for 2 or 3 group sessions but after that, things became quite boring and some dogs even would lay down and start to fall asleep.

On top of that, we were told that all dogs had to stay on leash, but a cocky owner of a large black German Shephard was allowed to walk to the other side of the room from his dog and leash during our group sessions practicing stay and come, while all of us watched, and nothing was said. Again, my dog is certainly better off than he was pre-training, but for this amount of money I was expecting more structure and more personalized treatment.

The main job of the trainer seemed to be to use the time to schedule the next week's session with everyone one at a time. Sometimes we would get a 5-minute "break" but no one was quite sure what that meant - do we let the dogs play with each other? Do we go outside for some air as a break from the very stuffy room? If not, what? No one was sure what to do.

Throughout the group sessions, we all seemed to be really wanting some hard instruction, or for the class to be addressed with things they've learned through all of their years of training, or even a chance for the owners to ask questions of the other owners, maybe a "myth of the day" to be debunked, etc. - something - anything to break up the monotony of TEN group sessions that were all the exact same.

There were also no real fun aspects like someone coming to their first group class being introduced, or a dog graduating from his last class, etc. - at least while I was there. The longtime owner had mentioned early on that he recently turned over the business to his children, so maybe my timing was just bad with having not-so-experienced trainers.

So for all of you reading the reviews of "Chas" - it's not him anymore. At the end of the day I feel my dog is in a better place, but for the amount of time and dollars invested, the value is not there.

Chas helped me train my 4 month old bichon years ago and the great behavior of my dog amazed everyone who encountered him. He was command trained, on & off leash, and responded to verbal and hand commands. The method involved a choke chain and a minimum of 1 hr of practice per day but after 5 lessons in 4 wks, voila, a well trained dog fir the next 17 yrs. Totally worth it if you are willing to do the work!

I am so embarrassed that I fell for this place and I wish I had done more research on dog trainers before I signed up. He uses negative training and gets you by saying he's a full time dog trainer and anyone can say they are a trainer but they only do it part time etc. He is not certified at all! and his kids are taking over for him when he retires but he didn't say if they would be certified.

First of all whenever I asked a question or said I noticed something different in her behavior the response was "because it's only the 3rd lesson" or "because it's your fault" or "because its a dog" he doesn't help you understand the behavior. He's a jerk. Second, I said my dog was getting more aggressive on walks, when I snap the leash she just gets more stressed out- the response from the son was "pull harder" (that's when I decided I was done with this place) they use flooding instead of desensitizing and my dog's behavior turned into worse aggression and more fearful.

The classes are a waste of time, it isn't anything that I can do on my own time for FREE! it's an hour of walking back and forth to see if the dog reacts. There is no structure planned out classes. Save your money and time, invest in a positive trainer who has taken classes and is certified. We just started positive training (the opposite of everything dog's best friend teaches) and I can already tell my dog trusts me more and is happier. I hope the people who have been going to this guy for years sees this and runs far away!

I have a 1 year old Golden who is a rambunctious, high energy puppy. I made the mistake of not teaching my puppy enough rules and boundaries while he was little and ended up with a hard to control dog who chews, digs, does not listen on or off leash, and thinks he's the boss around here. Chas has turned this around within 2 weeks. Of course, we have a long way to go, but I can see significant changes for the better.

I was skeptical about the claims Chas makes on his website before I met him. I also was curious about his methods because I thought quick results had to be due to harsh methods. The first thing Chas did was get a sense for my personality as well as my dog's, to figure out the best way for us to train. In our first private session (which is how Chas starts out with all his new clients), he explained his teaching method, how to do it and why it works within the first 10 minutes of our session.

Once I saw him bouncing treats off my very food motivated dog while he stayed in place, I was convinced (this, by the way, also happened within the first 5 minutes of our first training session). It's now been a little over a week since I started training with Chas and already my dog listens better, makes more eye contact with me, and has more respect for me.

I feel we have a better bond than I had with him in the past 10 months that I've had him! Chas's methods are humane and tailored to every dog and owner. My dog is on a flat collar and standard 6' leash. I am excited to join a group class starting next week and see how much more progress my dog and I make in the future. I went to Chas so that I could have a well-behaved dog who can eventually be allowed freedom off-leash and go everywhere with me. I have no doubt that with Chas's expertise, we will accomplish this.

Chas is amazing! Bella, our mix breed dog was scared of anything and in fear she could bite. He recommended private lessons with a few group lessons also. The first private was to assess our needs. He works with each dog as an individual. Then recommends which training would be the best. The first lessons were a little tough and we didn't see much of a change.

He would always recommend different ways to change with new thoughts to help us. We are near the end of our training and she is now doing new things, such as running through tunnels and walking a small beam. I never thought she would be capable of doing if not for Chas. Thank you. I would highly recommend it. It does take work on your half but wait until you see the change. It will amaze you!