The Douglas Family - "Romeo" Border Collie
We contacted Lisa when our Border Collie, Romeo, was about a year and a half old. At that point, we did not know were to turn. We had completed training courses elsewhere, with limited success. At one of the training facilities, he noticed the ceiling fans as soon as we walked in the door. He would bark continuously and stare at the fans for the entire course. This was not only embarassing, it was unfair to the rest of the dogs in the course. When training courses failed, I attempted to use the "Do-It-Yourself" method, which also failed miserably. With the cuteness of the puppy stage now gone, he was now a full grown dog. However, his behavior had not changed. He was now herding everyone in our family, chasing rollerbladers, bicycles, rabbits, deer...anything that moved was an understatement. We had a cat that had been down in the basement for months. It got to the point were our children's friends were afraid to come to our house. We had even resorted to a spiked choke collar to walk him on a leash. The main problem was not teaching him commands, it was getting him to obey them when his attention was focused elsewhere. After being told numerous times "He is a border collie, that is what they do", we met with Lisa and signed Romeo up for the Off-Leash program that same day. When we went to see him for the first time after his training was complete and I knew he had changed immediately when he walked into the room. He was so attentive, it was as if he had changed from a full grown puppy to a dog wise beyond his years. It has been over fours months now. We walk nearly every day in our subdivision with no leash in sight. We pass barking dogs, cars, kids, wildlife and he does not even consider leaving my side. We also take him, on-leash, to parks and downtown areas quite often. This was never even an option before. In the future, when the time comes for another dog, The Canine Academy will be one of the first places we contact to find out "How soon can we start?".
Thanks again to everyone at Canine Academy.
The Douglas Family: Marty, Dee, Molly, Alex & Romeo