Mr. O’s K-9 Dog Training

Mr. O’s training methods are awful. He uses negative reinforcement with choke chains. I’ve seen him at the Home Show with his dogs — he dresses them up in gold chains and watches and they look completely ridiculous.
His training is done by the miraculous grace of God? That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.

I am not a fan… and his lifetime guarantee is a joke. He wants your money, as much and as quickly as he can get it. I have called him and emailed him several times since giving him over $ 300 in one day for a group class. The video I bought from him was wrong, and he never returned calls or emails to fix it. I think he did a lot more damage than good. Although we learned some basic training, it was all fear based. Because my dog was already afraid, this did not help her. We paid less than half of what we paid Mr. O for a more positive trainer to come to our house and work with us and our kids for almost 4 hours. Our dog is responding much more positively and is less afraid. Our kids also have much more power with our dog. If you have a fearful dog, a shelter dog, or a bully breed, DON’T take them to Mr. O. He might be able to get you some quick fear based results that will backfire later. He also did not do a good job working with our kids, although I think he tried, he struggled. My kids could not do the corrections that he wanted, but are able to use the techniques that our new trainer taught them. His techniques are old school, inhumane and not based on current neurobiological research. He describes all dogs as anxious or anxious/​aggressive. He also tells everyone he «had a recent cancellation and can fit you in this one day or you will need to wait,» again taking advantage of your fear and if you fall for this scam, your dogs.

I have a (just over) 1.5 year old mix pup. I adopted her when she was 5 weeks old — much too young to be separated from her family, but the mama dog’s owner had dropped the litter off at 4 weeks. She was so wonderful as a young pup but she began developing a pretty huge attitude and jumping problem as she got older. By the time she hit her 1.5 year, she was officially not listening anymore to anything except for sit and wait — sometimes. She jumped on EVERYONE, scratched people, biting at their noses, hands and feet. She would bark at everyone and everything. She tormented my cat. When I spoke on the phone or had video chats, she would bite my hands, arms and feet hard enough to leave marks and pull blood and would not leave me along until I hung up the phone or turned off the computer. She had previously been extremely friendly with other dogs but also suddenly became aggressive with them. I had taken her to PetSmart where she passed the class with flying colors (or so the trainers claimed) but she was just getting worse. I had no idea what to do so I asked around about great trainers and numerous people suggested Mr. O. I spoke with my mother about possibly calling him and she had reminded me that she met him and his dog posse outside of HIllcrest Shopping Center in Lower Burrel. She was so impressed with the way he handled the dogs and how well they listened to him WHILE clearly adoring him.
I sent him an email and received a call back within 3 days. After one phone call, I booked him and he was able to fit us into a recently cancelled spot 4 days later.
I was told to drop my pup off in the morning which was hard — as I’ve only ever left my pup with strangers while boarding her for one short vacation. We spend literally every day together (she goes with me everywhere) — so I admit to feeling uneasy while driving to Mr. O’s. But as soon as he showed up and took pup off my hands, I instantly felt relaxed and comfortable with the situation. (He has such a calming personality. No wonder dogs love him!) He had his three dogs (his posse and their gold chains) with him to help ease my pup’s anxiety. I drove away with a completely different feeling than I had while driving there. I was happy and anxious!
Mr. O called me throughout the day to give me updates on my pup’s progress and to ask me questions about her. After 10 hours with her, we headed in for our portion of the training which lasted just over 2 hours. (Learning how to handle her properly.) He explained everything in great detail. He explained our dog would be categorized as an «un-​trainable basket case» because of her mixture of extreme anxiety + aggression. (I totally believe and agree with that.) But I could see immediately that my pup was almost totally changed. She listened to him SO well and was so clearly smitten with him. We’re still working on some mild issues with strangers as we’re still in the «reprogramming» phase, but overall, she is so much happier and less stressed out — as are we!
Thanks to Mr. O, we’re now one step closer to my pup becoming a Certified Therapy Dog to work with sick children — which is her dream job. ;) We’ll be going back to Mr. O for that certification when the time comes!
There’s only one thing I would have changed if I could have about the experience. I had to buy a leather leash (required), basic chain collar (required) and DVD (not required) of the training at the end of the day. I would have much preferred to have just paid for everything up front when I initially paid for the session at booking. So — if you’re like me and never carry checks/​cash on you, as Mr. O doesn’t accept cards yet, perhaps ask if you can lump all of that in with your initial payment so that you can avoid the ATM/​searching for your checkbook a second time. :)
Overall, I would (and already have!) highly highly highly recommend Mr. O to ANYONE and EVERYONE having any sort of issue with their pup! I personally hope he never retires because I plan to adopt more dogs eventually and absolutely want each of them go through his training! Also — he offers a LIFETIME GUARANTEE! I don’t know of a single dog trainer who offers anything remotely close to that!