Doran’s Canine College

I would highly recommend Doran’s Canine College! Boarding and Training is superb!

I just picked up my 1−½ year old Schnauzer — a real wild child — from Doran’s. She worked with Brett at Doran’s, and she’s a changed dog. She understands all the basic commands, which many trainers might have accomplished. More importantly, she learned how to learn. She’s more calm, less scatter-​brained than she was before she went in. Brett did an incredible job with Lily. BTW, this was the second experience there. eleven years ago i took my big schnauzer out there, and they did just as amazing job as they did with my new dog. I can’t recommend them highly enough — and it’s a bargain considering that they’re also boarding your dog for that whole time. An added bonus is that my dog dropped a pound or two while she was there, and she needed to lose that weight. Great job, Doran’s!

Owning a dog can be a great experience and provide a long time companion. Owning a dog can also be frustrating, annoying, and a frequent pain in the rear. My Goldendoodle, who is just over a year old, had been leaning towards the latter of those scenarios pretty much since I got him. Don’t get me wrong, I love the big fur ball, but he can be quite mischevious and when he doesn’t listen, it dissapoints me that I haven’t trained him better. I had taken him to several training classes when he was younger, but I’ll be honest, I started to get lazy and stopped reinforcing everything we had practiced in class. On top of that, a lot of the things we worked on in class didn’t exactly work well when we got home. As time went by, I realized it was time for a change. A friend of mine is related to the owner of Doran’s Canine College and recommended I try it. Here’s the low down:
For their basic obedience class, its a two week training class where they actually board your dog for the whole experience. During the first week, only the trainers work with your dog and you stay at home. During the second week, they continue to work with your dog but you schedule 3 owner/​trainer sessions where they teach you how to continue your dog’s training at home.
I knew going into this that their training style is a little more old-​school than my previous training classes. Previously, our training consisted of praising good behavior and treating him accordingly. Basically it was almost 100% positive reinforcement. Doran’s is a mix of corrective action and verbal praise. They use slip collars for corrections (also known as choke collars, but they aren’t meant to actually choke your dog) which was my first experience using them. I’ve never been a fan of the slip collar, as it seemed pretty harsh, but after going through training on how to use it properly, I’m now a fan.
So for the results:
My pup is the same old fun loving and friendly guy, but at the same time, he’s practically a different dog. He listens most of the time, is wonderful on walks, and overall creates a signficantly less stressful environment. I actually really enjoy having him around now because I’m not constantly chasing after him and struggling with him on walks. I will stress that after I brought him home, I’ve been making sure to practice the basics of everything he was taught so that he doesn’t start to forget.
Pros:
–Results are very good from training
–Staff is friendly
–While the intial fee is pretty high, considering they board your dog, feed it, and train it, the overall value is pretty good. Also, you can schedule follow up training sessions for free.
Cons:
–Kind of expensive ($ 600 for two weeks), but after seeing the results, one of the best investments I’ve made in a while
–The kennels aren’t much to look at. Its definitley a more «rural» type kennel where it has older concrete floors everywhere with metal cages that have a trap door to let the dogs into an outside concrete run. Since they just wash down both sides everyday, it just seems to be damp all the time. Maybe I’m pickier cause I usually board my dog in nicer kennels, but when I got him back after the training, he wasn’t very clean and had matted spots all over his fur.