Steve DeBono Dog Training

Steve and Rebekah are my heroes! I adore my dog but needed the direction to be the best pet parent I can be. My pup is shy, takes time to warm up in a different environment and at 85 lbs. can appear scary to others when he is out of sorts. I have learned that dogs have their own personalities and rather than changing my baby they have taught me how to be comfortable with him and our activities. Now when i say «lets go see Rebekah!» my pup is at the door ready to go before I can put a leash on him. He is being socialized and I am more relaxed. Steve is spot on with his guidance and we have benefited greatly from working with the team. These folks LOVE dogs and it shows. My pup is way more relaxed and even learned some tricks. Steve has shown me that i have to do the work too. He has given my family great tools for success while reminding us that its up to us do the work with our pets daily to make the training stick.

I think that Steve is a great teacher, for some types of dogs. I have a large, willful, very smart pit mix. When I heard Steve talking to my dog in a high squeaky voice,
I knew that it wasn’t going to work. My dog needs love and kindness, but also
firmness. My dog needs to know that he is not the alpha, but I am. I never talk to
him in a squeaky voice. It’s important with a willful dominate breed to establish
who’s in charge. The squeaky voice is way too submissive for my boy. I recommend
Steve for less dominate willful breeds. I think he is really good with them.

Steve came by to help us better manage our new and stubborn dachshund puppy. He was good and worked well with us. Will be using him again soon as we recently reacquired a larger boy who has bad habits.

We signed up for training after a recommendation from Howl ‘n Woof and we were extremely satisfied with our time with Steve DeBono. We got an appointment right away for an in-​home consultation and he was super cool when our dog was flipping out about the doorbell ringing. He was great with her and gave us some excellent insight how to make her little world better for her, and us too! We will be signing up for more training in the future.

My dog walker recommended I reach out to Steve when I told her I was nervous about my bf bringing his (much smaller) dog in to my house. Our dogs are very sweet, people-​friendly older females; however, they are not around other dogs on a regular basis. The major issue is/​was me – I can be a nervous wreck if my dog ever growls or gets tense. I reached out to Steve, and he came over to my place and worked with us for 90 minutes.
He immediately put me at ease. I won’t go through all the details, but at the end of the session the dogs were fine with each other going in and out of the house alone & together. I even managed to walk both of them this morning without any hassle!
I highly recommend Steve!

My 11 year old dog has recently started showing aggression towards other dogs in the building, coinciding with a move to an apartment downtown. Steve was great about not only providing some long term behavior goals and a pathway to achieve them, but also some tips to help me get my dog out of immediately potentially sticky situations. He also was helpful in coaching me about some of my current practices and what they communicate to my dog. It was great to be reminded that there will be some good outings and some bad outings, but to just stick with it and not be too hard on myself when the bad ones happen. He is great and I would highly recommend him to anyone for not only dog training, but owner training!

Steve worked with my 7– year old dog when she was a puppy and is currently working with us at integrating our new foster into our household. He knows his stuff and is terrific with dogs. I also really appreciate that he doesn’t sugar-​coat his training — he lays out the possibilities/​likelihoods and what is important or what is not. While he’s great at teaching basics, he’s also skilled at dealing with some of the more complicated and sticky behavioral issues.

I’ve sat in on one of Steve’s classes and pretended like I was one of the puppies and I had a blast. There was all sorts of fun things to run around and so many cool friends to just hang out with. Also Steve looks like the kind of person who would be amazing at helping out dogs so that’s a huge bone (bone-​us).

Our puppy Tuesday is a lovable, intelligent little fluffball. She was smart before Steve got ahold of her, but she had no framework for knowing and doing what we wanted.
In his short time with Tuesday, Steve taught her to sit, lie down, stay, pay attention to him, heel, jump through a hoop, and jump over his leg.
Most importantly, however, he taught her that she should pay attention to us, and try to do what we’re telling her to do. That has made all the difference in her behavior. Even if she doesn’t understand what we want, she at least pays attention and tries.
Steve is super sweet around dogs, too. You can tell that he loves his job, and that he loves the animals he encounters. The only side effect is that I think Tuesday loves Steve more than she loves us now. Anytime she sees him she can barely contain her excitement.
Honestly, the money we spent on dog training was the best money we’ve spent on our dog.