Thank you so much for this material. I really enjoyed JJ's delivery and teaching methods. I was able to pick up on the concepts right away. The biggest thing that I took away that pertains to my training was the timing of the food reward after marking a behavior. I was giving my dog the reward too quickly. Being able to see JJ and his timing helped me make adjustments which ended up making a huge difference. Thanks again, I really appreciate JJ's work.

- Eddie Garcia on 04/20/2020

I have volunteered at a local animal shelter and wish this course was available back then. This course is a must for all staff at pet shelters and or rescues to better assist adopters make educated decisions during the adoption process. This should be a must for all adopters as well as conditions of taking a dog home.The material is presented well in regards to a dog being processed into a shelter all the way through the adoption process and caring for the dog once at a new home. I enjoyed the videos from different points of view of various shelter facilities in their operations.

The overview of how to conduct basic obedience sessions for better communication and using real world training in proofing the obedience is something a lot of general owners may not know and was a great refresher for myself. One of the most common issues which was stated in the section regarding real world training is what I have seen in clients that I work with or new dog owners is their inability to stay calm during training sessions or building into the dogs energy which makes training difficult. Training a dog in drive should be clear and concentrated. I liked how it was stated in this course : “Overly excited people create overly excited dogs”.

This course also did not sugar coat the behavior issues that may come up from adopting a rescue dog (like: barking, destructive and resource guarding) and gave explanations and resources for assistance in resolving them.

One small new idea that I took from this course was the use of a battery powered toothbrush to acclimate the dog to having hair trimmed at a groomer was awesome! My dog is single coated with short hair so no need for hair clippers, but will definitely use it in case I did have to remove her hair due to any unforeseen circumstance.

JJ Belcher is an excellent instructor and the Leerburg team has created another fine online course.

- Mark Bower on 04/20/2020

I enjoyed this course, it was very informative for me especially as I deal with a lot of rescue dogs.

- James Castorina on 04/20/2020

I wish I had taken this course before I rescued my dog. I feel like there are many things that would have helped to ease her into her new environment as we were her third home after being picked up as a stray. The sections including prevention of separation anxiety and the importance of socialization/neutralization were very informative and personally helpful. Of course, hindsight is 20/20!

This well-rounded course has a lot of material that I can utilized now as well as in the future. Currently, I volunteer with a rescue and have started to foster dogs. I feel better equipped to help these dogs on their journey to finding their permanent homes, especially in preventing behavioral problems and preparing them to be more adoptable.

- Rachel Wright on 04/15/2020

We enjoyed taking this course. There was a lot of valuable information that needed to be repeated to even long time dog owners. We especially like the modules that gave information on introducing you new dog to it's forever home, the module that explained behavior modifications and the module that gave information on slowly and incrementally introducing the dog to new surroundings, people and other stimuli. We also learned that it is better for us and the dog to be neutralized rather than be socialized.

- Donna & Steve Farmer on 04/15/2020