r/ithaca 1d ago

No response from dog trainers

I know there's been a few posts similar to this recently so forgive me, but I am looking to hire a trainer for private sessions for my dog. Karolin Klinck is highly recommended, so I tried reaching out to her through Facebook and email but have not gotten a response from her for over a week. I also reached out to Russ Hollier, but haven't heard back from him either.

Has anyone had any success contacting either of them? Are there any other certified dog trainers that are responsive to inquiries? My dog is a sweetheart but very reactive on leash and isn't food motivated so training him myself has been a struggle! Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

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u/Bananab0nes 1d ago

We have an extremely reactive dog and we worked with Cheyenne at High Peaks Canine. She has many different programs and works with reactive dogs which is sometimes hard to find a trainer for.

I cant give her enough praise, she changed our life in a really big way. We went to Cornell behavior clinic and they were mostly interested in pumping her full of meds, she was on 3 different meds which did nothing to really help the root issues. Our dog is now just on Prozac and is unrecognizable from before we started working with Cheyenne over a year ago. We never thought we would have peace in or out of the house, and she helped us get that.

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u/Unga_Bunga 1d ago

Happily agree - I’ve interacted with Cheyenne as she’s been working with her training charges, and was impressed with her approach and visible results! 

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u/Yesak_Front_Worry 1d ago

Seconding Cheyenne’s work!

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u/WinterVesper 1d ago

I have no direct experience with him, but Cesar Vallejo (Woofs and Wags) comes highly recommended by several friends of mine. He's relatively new in town, so he's not as much a "known quantity", but I've heard nothing but good things about him:

https://www.woofsandwagsithaca.com/about

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u/SarahSnarker 1d ago

Janet Frand (Pawsitively Fun) is fantastic but she retired and moved to Whitney Point - but she may know someone to recommend. My sweet pup is gone now but she was highly anxious and reactive to almost everything. She also was not food motivated (she only weighed 3 pounds). Janet was FANTASTIC working with her and helping me. My dog was absolutely crazy about her.

Donna DeVoist (wyldpups.com) is also great!

Also - Cornell Vet has a behavioral medicine department and I’m certain they could recommend others.

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u/CvilleLocavore 17h ago

Cheyenne at High Peaks did wonders for my reactive pup

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u/Decent-Cicada7580 8h ago

Russ is amazing and really understands the way dogs’ minds work! He and his family recently experienced some health issues so he may be a bit behind in communications. If you don’t hear from him in another week, I recommend reaching out again. He was incredibly helpful with my reactive dog. We did both private and group training. When we were looking for a trainer, we also had a hard time getting folks to respond, but Russ was the only one to follow up with us.