Our experience with ABC Training Kennels and Akin has been wonderful. We bought a 4-month-old Rottweiler puppy, and while she was sweet and loving, she was also a puppy, a big puppy. We didn’t think she was naughty, but we wanted to make sure she didn’t learn any bad habits. She was in our opinion a good dog, but we knew with her breed she could also be extremely well behaved. She had the normal puppy rambunctiousness which included treating our small children like puppies. She would try to herd them and play with them like they were also puppies. That play sometimes including nipping. She liked to chew on anything she could that was her height or left on the ground, and while she was not a bad walker, she did pull to try and play with other dogs. Being a Rottweiler, the leash pulling made her look aggressive, and we know that she is going to only get stronger as she grows. Part of the reason we got a Rottweiler was for a good guard dog, a family protector, but we wanted to make sure she knew the difference between someone we welcomed in our home and an intruder. We also live near a school with lots of morning traffic, so we wanted to make sure her behavior wouldn’t scare the kids. After just the first session with Akin there was a huge change in Kyla’s behavior; however, that wasn’t the best part of the lesson. The best part was the human training. Akin taught us, and our children, how to train Kyla. We were an active part in the lessons. He was patient and walked us through each of the lessons, the objectives, and how to train her ourselves. Kyla was a great student and a quick learner. Akin’s command over her was effortless and his ability to communicate what we needed to do was great. In only a few lessons our entire checklist of the goals we wanted out of the training was completed, and we were asking Akin what else could we do- what else could we teach Kyla? He gave us other goals, moving to hand gestures without verbal commands, teaching her advanced heel training without the leash, and even getting our youngest children involved in her training. The fact that she was listening to them instead of treating them like puppies was wonderful. The training collar he provides is a great tool to use. Kyla doesn’t mind wearing it, and it provides just enough stimulus for her to react. There are many of the commands after only a few lessons that we no longer even need to use the collar for. For example, now if food gets dropped by anyone in the house, even if it is right in front of Kyla, she will “leave it” until we either pick it up or we tell her it is ok to eat. She will also go to her “place” cot without being told and will wait there, especially at meal times, until we let her out. We are extremely pleased with Akin and ABC Training Kennels and would recommend him over and over again. Kyla is almost a year old now and has become the puppy that we knew she could be. We are excited to see how her training progresses as she grows.

-Queño & Jen Martinez