Think Pawsitive – Pet Training

Vanessa is great. Incredibly knowledgeable and great at what she does. We did the level 1 obedience and will be returning for level 2, and probably more classes after that. At the time of signing up, my puppy was 6 months old, and a little in between the puppy and adult class, so she let me wait until she knew what the other class members were going to be before placing me in the class where my pup would fit best. Group classes are small and allow for a lot of individual attention. It was about a 40 minute drive from my house to the classes and it was MORE than worth it– I will never have to look anywhere else!

My boyfriend and I have been working with Vanessa since July 2015.
Our Lab puppy George, LOVES Vanessa! Sometimes he is so tired that we don’t know how well he will do in his training session; as soon as he gets to see her, he lights up and will sit politely and his tail will sway back and forth. We wish we could get that greeting from him, but it is saved just for her.
We are blown away with how far George has come in such a short amount of time. We do in-​home private training and just finished our first puppy class, getting ready for puppy class 2 in a couple of weeks.
I would recommend Vanessa and Think Pawsitive to anyone and everyone!!! We get complimented all the time on how well behaved our puppy is in social situations.
You can tell how much she loves dogs, and how much dogs love her! I always feel better on the days George gets to work with Vanessa. I know he will be happy, working for his treats and being engaged in different ways that my boyfriend and I would know how to do. Also, what is so great is that she goes over everything she teaches George with us so we can continue to shape him, in a consistent way. We know we are saying the same things as her, getting the same results and we have seen the payoff already.
We recently took George to dog beach and practiced all the training he has been given so far and were blown away with how much he did with us! With such a high distraction area, he came every time he was called, played touch ping pong with us all while being the happiest dog ever. This would not have been possible without the training we received from Vanessa, especially at such an early age.
Vanessa works with our schedule, very respectful of our time and is a true professional. I am beyond happy we have found Vanessa–
I wish I would have had this type of training for our last lab 10 years ago.
Thanks again Vanessa for all that you do with George!

If you have an animal that needs training, contact Think Pawsitive Pet Training right away. Owner Vanessa Melrose is not just an animal trainer… she is an animal expert! We adopted an American bulldog puppy who at 1 year old weighs approximately 80 pounds. He is as friendly as he is large, but to say he is a ‘bull in a china shop’ is an understatement. I was skeptical about the idea of ‘click-​training’, but we were desperate for help! After doing some research online, Think Pawsitive’s reviews, rates and availability were a good fit. From the moment Vanessa walked into our 1^st session, her calm, gentle demeanor and incredible animal instincts floored us! And since we began our journey with her almost 6 months ago, she has helped us cultivate a positive relationship with a puppy that often times felt like too much to handle. Not a session goes by that we don’t see a vast improvement in Otis’s behavior. Weekly our friends comment on ‘how much better (and bigger) Otis is getting’. She has given our family the tools we need to develop a healthy, fun and safe relationship with our gentle giant. We receive detailed session recaps outlining what we did and should continue to do to reinforce the training. Be sure to check out her education, credentials and experience — they are impressive and yet don’t do her justice! She’s so much more. Vanessa is special. She understands animals in a way that most humans don’t understand each other.

TPPT is as good as it gets. I can’t think of a single piece of constructive criticism to give Vanessa. She is phenomenal! I completed six in-​home training sessions with our 4-​month old miniature poodle mix. Vanessa helped me to build a solid base of skills and I’m now confident that I can teach new skills as needed and successfully address problem behaviors if they arise. Vanessa is extremely knowledgeable (which I suppose isn’t surprising given all of her certifications), very organized, and a lovely, caring person.
I was particularly impressed by the wealth of written information Vanessa provides. Before the first training session, Vanessa provided a whole series of PDF files that we worked through over the following six weeks (I also had the option of getting them in hard copy). After each class, she’d send me a recap email. The emails weren’t some generic copy and paste vomit; they summarized what we learned but also addressed any issues or questions that had come up. For example, I have a toddler and asked Vanessa how to address it when the puppy jumps on my toddler as she runs. In her recap email, Vanessa reiterated the answer she gave me in person (my daughter should pretend to be a tree), but also provided a link to a great site designed just for kids with videos of what my toddler should do. These emails (and the electronic library mentioned above) were invaluable when I couldn’t remember something exactly (for example, at what point during a certain exercise I should reward).
I will be referring all of my friends to Vanessa and am confident that anyone who signs up for a group class or in-​home training will be thankful they did.

We just finished our second group class with Vanessa at Think Pawsitive — Pet Training and are beyond happy with the results! We had previously taken the Puppy Class and seen such great results that we decided to enroll in the Control Unleashed class with both our dogs. We had to work through dog reactivity (barking like crazy and thrashing around) with one. The first class she barked for the first half hour but by the last class she was walking off leash by my side past other dogs without reacting! AMAZING!!! We also had to work on focus and distractions with the other. He would get fearful of and distracted by noises. In our last class, not even the train bothered him! This morning a garbage truck with compression brakes passed right by him and he was fine! We highly recommend Vanessa and Think Pawsitive — Pet Training! She makes it so much fun and everyone is so successful!

My family has been through a lot with our fearful and reactive dog. He is not friendly to humans and other dogs. There are very few humans that he feels safe with. Having said this, I feel like there’s finally hope for him. There is finally a game plan. Unlike other trainers who come in, start their training, and never really tell you what the plan is, Vanessa made it clear to me that it may be a long process and that we will be taking baby steps toward the ultimate goal of socializing him to ALL life forms. Life gets busy, and we haven’t been as consistent as when we first started, but the lessons that my dog has learned are being reinforced at home. I am looking forward to resuming our lessons with Vanessa. She is a pro. Highly recommended.

I have 2 dogs that had not had any training except what I had provided at home. Unfortunately I didn’t socialize one of my dogs that really needed it, and so I found Vanessa and TPPT. Mainly, I picked Vanessa because of the types of certifications she has completed. Secondly I went to meet her and see if she knew her stuff. It’s very clear that when it comes to training, I would consider her an expert. Having been a vet tech for 5 years, I can smell the BS from a mile away, and Vanessa knows technically how to train, and also how to make it understandable for us humans.
We worked with my fearful dog, and Vanessa already had a plan in her head. By the 5^th week, my pooch was ready to interact with everyone in class… on her first day, she shivered in the corner for almost 30 minutes. Vanessa helped me form a foundation of confidence to build on!
My second dog has just started and loves going to class, and the techniques that Vanessa is teaching make it easy on the dog to understand what to do. Some of it is using the innate «dog» behavior to build on, and some of the training is using the «human» desire to guide the behavior. We’re making progress!
ALL TRAINING IS POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT ONLY… in class we use treats, scratches under the chin, belly rubs, a small break from training to get some energy out.
I feel it necessary to address the negative reviews. We all make mistakes, and I am not going to refute anything, but what I can say, as a service provider myself (basically if we don’t provide service, we lose contracts) is that Vanessa has been professional and understanding with me. She is punctual, prepared, responsive, returns phone calls or text messages and of course emails the same day she receives them. I had to miss a training session, and Vanessa immediately offered up a make-​up session of shorter duration at no additional cost. So I don’t know if Vanessa is handling things differently or what, but I have not had any negative experience dealing with her reliability.
All in all, I give Vanessa an A+ in quality and personal effort to make the training successful, not only for the dog, but also for the dog parents.

My family and I worked with the lead trainer, Vanessa, for one-​on-​one training with our adult golden retriever, who is goofy and sweet as can be but still has trouble with on-​the-​leash aggression towards other dogs. This training made such a noticeable difference in our dog’s walking behavior! Wow! It used to give me anxiety when I would see another dog heading our way, but now my dog behaves like the lady that we all knew she could be.
I highly recommend Think Pawsitive Pet Training. Vanessa is very professional and always ready to answer any pet-​related question I have. She really knows so much about dogs– I was very impressed with her vast store of dog-​related knowledge. That, and the fact that she only uses positive reinforcement, showed me how much she loves dogs and how dedicated she is to her craft.

We took our mini labradoodle rescue to Vanessa’s class for CGC certification. My son was the student (with me supervising) with our 14 mos old puppy. Vanessa was patient allowing my son to learn and train the dog (it was his project to make him a therapy dog). We always could ask questions and do things over until we had it right. Vanessa is terrific with the dogs and a friendly and super helpful person. Tank passed his certification easily when we completed the class thanks to Vanessa. She referred us to a wonderful organization for Therapy Pets and we easily passed their test too! Now my son and I participate in events helping the military. I would highly recommend (and have to complete strangers who mention how well behaved my dog is) Vanessa’s classes/​training.

Thank you so much Vanessa. You have truly made my life so much easier and relaxing. I am so grateful I took your class. Vanessa is an amazing trainer. I took my 6 month old pit bull to her beginning obedience class and she responded to her commands & instructions immediately. I don’t know how she does it, but she has an amazing way of training that works!!! I highly recommend her to anyone who has a dog any breed, shape or size! She is only the best.

Think pawsitive is awesome. The trainer Vanessa is super, super nice and professional and in a very short amount of time made my my puppy which had been out out control a bazillion times more obedient. I never thought it could become that controllable and can’t say enough about how satisfied I was with my experience using them. Will definitely be using them again in the future and if you need pet training you should absolutely go here too!

This review is for their false advertising of a deal on Living Social. The deal was for private training classes but nowhere in the fine print does it state that the class is only available on Saturdays.
I can understand if they were all booked up and only had Saturdays left, but that was not the case.
The female that answered the phone when I tried to book was totally unapologetic and not helpful. Very defensive right off the bat too when I told her I’d bought two Living Social vouchers because I have two dogs. Right away, she said the second voucher is not valid and only limit 1 per customer, blah blah blah. (First of all, I had bought one for me and my husband had bought one for our second dog. They instigate barking in each other so that was why I wanted the training session. She said no because you are in the same family.) Anyways, it wasn’t until I said I bought two because I wanted to train both my dogs in one session that she said ok. So if it’s advantageous for them, it’s ok…

Vanessa may be a great and talented dog trainer as indicated by her positive or «pawsitive» training reviews, but what she has in these skills she totally lacks in personal customer service skills. I would not recommend doing business with Vanessa. We had an unfortunate miscommunication incident re: lack of clarification as to the location of the scheduled training for my dog. This resulted in inconvenience to both of us. I drove a significant distance to the Think Pawsitive Training facility in Encinitas arriving early for our scheduled training session. Vanessa went to my home (which I would have much preferred had it been made clear). When we spoke via phone and realized the situation I offered to drive back to meet. Understandably she could not wait. I requested to reschedule. I had already purchased an advertised Voucher for this initial training session listing the Encinitas facility address with a map as well. She subsequently sent me an email stating she was deducting more than half of my pre-​payment as a «no show» which was ridiculous, would not honor the voucher for the training session as advertised, and would charge me for rescheduling the session that was missed due to her lack of «clear» communication as to the location. I have had a long career as a marketing manager professional with a Fortune 500 Company. Vanessa’s mercenary response to this situation speaks to her lack of business and customer service skills. The obvious appropriate response would have been to simply offer to reschedule in light of the mutual inconvenience caused by this confused situation. Unfortunately I will not be doing any further business with Vanessa as I am sure there are other good dog trainers available who also combine appropriate customer service skills.

Vanessa at Think Pawsitive helped me train my 7 year old labradoodle to stop jumping up on my guests. I have worked with other trainers in the past, and none of them could get my dog to behave. Highly recommended!

I have an overly hyper 5 y/​o Min Pin who really needed an outlet for all of his energy.
He was starting to drive me crazy! I knew something had to be done.
A quick search of Dog Agility San Diego yielded me Vanessa, and I have yet to look back.
Vanessa is the female version of the dog whisper. I truly don’t know how she does it, but she does. I brought my rowdy Min Pin to her and within half an hour she had him under control and behaving like a true gentleman!
Vanessa is very in tune with dogs and is able to respectfully teach the owners as well. What I love most about her though is that she doesn’t discriminate against the dog breed or size. She truly understand that every breed is different and has a different learning style, just like humans.
As long as I live in San Diego, TPPT will remain my place of choice to take my fur children.

After a very BAD experience with a differet dog training company TPPT was everythjng i ever asked for! The lead trainer for this company is amazing!!! Unlike the other company she answered all my emails and calls, never cancelled an appointment, and she always made sure I understood what was going on so I could continue what she was doing after she left. After several classes with her I learned so much about dog training and my dog! Besides the fact that my dog absolutely loves her, she has made my relationship with both my dogs so much better! I feel like I understand them better because of Vanessa! She is amazing, professional, and very qualified! I plan on taking every class she offers!!!