DOGGY BOOT CAMP-Santa Barbara

Mar 2025

You can have 110% confidence in Joe and Doggy Boot Camp SB. Joe knows his stuff and will listen to your needs and get to the core of your problem. He makes himself available nearly 24/7 and supports you, your family and your dog as you all learn new behaviors and find the path to happy dogs and proud happy owners. Not only that his results are incredibly fast. He is humane, kind, and gives appropriate interventions that don’t hurt your dog. Please don’t waist your time and money with other trainers, Joe has been one of our best investments. His teachings and methodologies will stay in our family for years and future dogs to come. Thanks again Joe!!

Aug 2024

We have a 2.5 year old dog that was highly reactive on the leash, would often bark at dogs or strangers that would approach him, and had become highly protective of our child. He had gone through different training programs with some slight improvements that would fade away a few weeks later, and after my wife got to a point where she no longer felt she was capable of walking our dog and controlling his aggressive nature on a leash, we decided to explore potential options and stumbled upon Joe. After an hour call with Joe it was clear he is incredibly committed to achieving your desired outcomes, and has an approach that he firmly believes in. I was not as confident as he was that we would see the outcomes, and on the timeline he was sharing without meeting our dog yet. Turns out he was 100% correct, and in a matter of a few days he had our 100 lbs dog walking on a leash flawlessly, engaging all dogs around him in a pleasant manner, and playing with other dogs when off leash. A few weeks post training our dog is a whole new individual for the better, and our trust and confidence in his ability to engage all dogs and humans is at an all-time high. The change in quality of life that Joe has brought not only to our dog, but to our whole family is tremendous. His program is not for the faint of heart or passive dog owner. He will demand changes in the way you interact with your dog, and he will demand a level of commitment from you that requires 20+ hrs of your time in a week long period, but the results are unmatched and well worth it! Could not say enough great things about the impact Joe's program has had for us.

Nov 2023

We Didn't Think It Could Be Done! Before I get into some of the details, here's the one sentence headline: Our training with Joe has been an unqualified success and he has done for us exactly what he said he would do. If we knew then what we know now, we would have done this ages ago. Ok, so that was two sentences, sorry. How did we get here? Our dog Enzo, five and a half at the time he started with Joe, had been under-socialized. The result was that he was reactive with other dogs - nervous about life and the world (can relate!) and had figured out that he could cause other dogs and people to leave him alone if he barked and lunged and generally acted scary. We had a neighborhood reputation of having the sort of dog where you cross the street when you see 'em. Not. Great. Enzo was amazing with us at home but since he unpredictable with others, it bred a pattern of insularity where we didn't invite people over, didn't take him to meet other dogs and the like. Enzo was alone on our little island - he was getting out to walk but not really experiencing the world the way a dog should be able to. Enzo was overly sheltered because we were nervous. If this sounds like your situation, keep reading because it doesn't have to be this way! We had done training before with, at best, so-so results. Even though it was not our first time, I don't think we realized it could be done so differently. I will say, when we first talked to Joe, our initial impression was: 'whoa, this guy is sort of hardcore'. There were rules that he told us we needed to impose if we wanted to be successful that we hadn't even thought of as problems. Nothing unreasonable but definitely changes in our regular routine and a more disciplined approach. That was new - previous trainers didn't have much to say about the big picture or changing the home life, though in retrospect, this part was critical. We met for our first day - a multi-hour session to get everything started. We didn't know what to expect but we were willing to give it a go and let him direct us. Our expectation was that it would take at least weeks to see results. We were wayyyyyy wrong. Even after that first session, we made major progress. Joe's philosophy is to help dogs be dogs and it turns out that when you swim with the tide instead of against it, things go a lot more smoothly. Enzo is a changed dog. Our lives are better and most importantly his life is much better. He's out running and playing with other dogs daily, something that we thought was impossible just weeks ago. Joe delivers and we give him a hearty recommendation.