PAWS ON POSITIVE DOG TRAINING

Amazing.  Our house.  Our schedule.  All attention on us and our dog.  If you begin to understand and believe in the methods of positive reinforcement training, this is for you.  We adopted an 11 week old puppy from the Humane Society.  He was taken from his mother too early at 3 weeks and had some issues with accidents in our home.  He was actually afraid to go to the bathroom and it seemed that he was punished for having accidents prior to being with us so he was frightened and tried to hide when he had to go.  He was also afraid of spray bottles and he nipped and bit with his sharp baby teeth.  Howard came to our home a total of 6 times.  We involved both our kids in the training.  He showed us how to get the behavior we wanted from our dog and how to train him using positive reinforcement.  Our dog is now about 5 1/2 months old and is better trained than many dogs are at 5, 6 and 7 years.  
Howard did not "train" our dog for us.  He taught us how to train our dog.  I was having trouble getting him to lie down for me and Howard had him lying down in about 10 minutes.  We were able to pick up where Howard left off and our dog lies down when we tell him and often, without telling him.  He knows we like that behavior and responds accordingly. 
At 5 1/2 months our dog's pottying anxiety is gone, he bathrooms outside, he sits automatically, lies down, comes, stays, rolls over, goes for walks, gets in his pen at home, his kennel in my van, etc.  He is doing well in our home and we are now extending these behaviors by training him in other environments.  We learned so much about dog behavior it is easy to understand the process Howard taught us and to apply it to each situation.  He gave us the tools to have a great dog and a skill set that will help us continue to train our dog "positively" through out his life.  
We could not be more pleased with the outcome of our private training with Howard and Paws on Positive Training.  We would not hesitate to have do more private training or participate in one of the classes.  The classes would be a good next step for socialization and training with distraction.
Having in-home training with a professional trainer probably saved us from divorce court.  It was like having a neutral behavioral therapist for the whole family.  We were all able to participate without getting into arguments about what we should be doing!  I have 21-year-old who was able to be present for a couple of the sessions and a 13-year-old who was available for 5 of the 6 sessions.  If you have children, they tend to take direction better from others vs. their parents!  They were very involved in the process.  It was a very educational, successful experience for all of us - dog included!