Best Friends Animal Behavior Consulting

My dog recently had the misfortune of being accused of biting another dog (wrongfully accused, I might add, and has since been vindicated, but that’s a story for another day). As we live in Minneapolis, that meant dealing with Minneapolis Animal Care & Control, who ended up declaring my dog «potentially dangerous.» Appealing that decision was expensive and insanely stressful, and involved having a «behavior analysis» done by one of their city-​approved trainers. Carol Propotnik, of Best Friends Animal Behavior Consulting, is on that list.
Carol doesn’t currently have much of an online presence – her website is very outdated, and you won’t find her on social media. She seems to be a bit of an «insider secret,» getting most of her business via word of mouth and referrals, but I offered to write her a Unilocal review because I had such a great experience working with her.
There are plenty of «dog trainers» out there – some extremely good, some not so good – but there’s no regulation on what that title actually means. Carol is an actual animal behaviorist with an advanced degree and years of experience. She spent two full hours getting to know my dog and me, observing and interacting with him in our home. It’s clear that she loves, respects, and understands animals, and she had some really interesting insights into my dog’s behavior.
Moreover, Carol was sympathetic to our situation, which was refreshing after dealing with some rude, rigid individuals at Animal Control (looking at you, Officer Young…). She’s personable and reasonable, seems very invested in her clients’ well-​being, and went out of her way to accommodate the extremely limited window of time I had to work with. I’d recommend her to anyone in my situation, but also to anyone dealing with pet behavior issues they want to understand and correct. If my dog had thumbs, they’d be up!