DogAcademyReviews of dogacademy.org

This was to be my first session at 1PM today. No one called or texted to set up the meeting nor was I sent a link to join in a class, After 20 minutes of trying to figure out what was going wrong I finally called, They finally told me the the trainer had a last minute family emergency and they couldn't get another trainer on time. No one called or texted about this. I really told them what I thought about how they handled or didn't handled it. I ask for a refund and canceled my membership. I am not paying for an irresponsible company to take my money and not do the work. I wish I had read these reviews before I signed up, If you are reading these don't sign up.

Great experience, just having issues resetting password

I decided to purchase 6 session of the virtual training because it was the cheapest option and according to the website, the results were the same as the in-person training sessions. From the start, I explained that I have a relatively stubborn 10-month-old dog that is not food-motivated. I explained that the most important thing we wanted to fix and work on was her walking and recall. That being said, from the start of our training sessions we were told to work on various tricks. Of course, my dog mastered all these tricks very quickly because tricks were not the issue we were having with my dog. However, I had an open mind to this training technique at first. I was told this would teach my dog basic obedience and would help with her confidence and listening skills during walks. After 3 of our training sessions went by, my dog had still not shown any improvements in her walking. During our training sessions I explained to the trainer that everything else was just fine, but my dog's behavior on walks was still not improving. Even after consistently raising this concern, our trainer still focused on tricks during our sessions. She gave some tips to help with walking, but even after consistent practice with my dog, none of them worked. At the end of our second to last session, she said she would do some research for stubborn dogs because all of the regular techniques she would recommend are clearly not working. During our final session we finally went outside and I showed her my dogs walking. Our trainer told us that my dog was not demonstrating any red flag behaviors, it was just mostly annoying behaviors with pulling and could easily be corrected. I told her that we have been doing all of the techniques for the past few months, but my dog still demonstrates the same behavior. My dog also gets overly-excited when we see people or dogs on walks, but because my dog does not show aggression with the excitement our trainer said the behavior is not concerning. Although the behavior may not be a "red flag", my dog is a st. bernard mixed with a great pyrenees and is nearly the same weight as me. So the behavior may not appear nearly as bad for any other dog, but because my dog is so large, I would argue that it is a red flag. The reason we held off on training until my dog was 10 months was because we were worried that we would not see any benefits in our dog and we would just waste our money, which unfortunately is exactly what happened. We felt like our issues we wanted to address were never properly addressed and we were told to just continue practicing the same techniques, which clearly were not working. We were hoping that these trainers could teach us more than a youtube video could and they would know how to handle a stubborn dog, but clearly that was not the case. I am really disappointed with the results of this training and I can confidently say that it was a waste of money. If you have a particularly stubborn dog, I would 100% not recommend this training.

I submitted a request for information on bark.com and received an extremely aggressive sales call in response, complete with pressured tactics to get someone in my house the next day for training and repeated “why, when I’m giving you a deal” type questions, when I’d just asked how to contact them if I decided to go forward. It is not at all unreasonable for me to take a moment before deciding. The pressure tactics were unreal “these are lovely dogs and I’d hate to see them die” because I stated I wanted to look into a local trainer that also did boarding so they’d be familiar if I wanted to use that service. These dogs have NO major behavior problems, I was looking for training regarding barking at the window for deliveries and inconsistent recall. I hung up at that point but this phone call was really ridiculous. Caller stated his name was Tom.

Follow up - I recently wrote a one star review saying I felt scammed by this company. I was promised certain training information and was given typo filled inconsistent lessons which looked copy-pasted out of wikipedia. The company responded to my review saying they wanted to further discuss with me - and after I replied to that ... They ghosted me. They're just replying on here to look like they're doing the work to improve the company (but they're not actually doing the work). Honestly, just YouTube the trainings you want...this company is trash.

No one appeared to host the meeting. I looked at a blank screen for 25 minutes. Please cancel and refund. Very disappointed.

This course is a joke. You pay a few hundred dollars for similar training materials you can buy on Amazon for about $15. Don't waste your money. Read about service animals prior to enrolling in this useless service.

The private lesson, which cost me $133 was a complete waste of time. The trainer was a retiree who had the most rudimentary understanding of dog training. My specific problem was recall off leash. All he could offer was to tell me to make myself more interesting than the dogs surroundings, and when I asked how I did that, his only answer was give him a treat. To represent this person as a highly trained AKC certified professional is fraudulent.