Professional, positive dog training on Vancouver Island

Baby Dog puppy socialization classes are such a blast. Watching your pup learn how to interact and have fun with dogs of all sizes in a controlled environment is great. As a new dog owner this is exactly what we needed.

BabyDog was recommended to me by a friend and now I am in a position to recommend them to my friends and family. I contacted BabyDog for private sessions to help me improve my puppy’s impulse control. My Jack Russell Terrier had a terrible habit of picking things up and eating them - everything. Even dangerous things. I was at the point where I felt I could not keep him safe and I was considering rehoming him. The Baby Dog trainer and I worked slowly and methodically building a strong foundation of impulse control commands such as no, leave it, drop it, sit/stay, and place. We added one or two new skills every week. As my pup improved we worked on walking skills and recall. Everything finally came together and now my pup lives safely and happily, as a member of our family, and loves training every day. I am so pleased with my investment in my dog and my partnership with BabyDog. Their training methodology is science-based, gentle, kind, and it has proven itself effective for my dog. I found the trainer to be knowledgeable, skilled, patient, and kind. She was an excellent communicator for both handler and puppy. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with her, gaining confidence in my ability to teach my pup and his capacity to learn. My dog and I are now a team, training every day, and continuing to solidify the skills we have learned. I am a BabyDog customer for life.

While I have owned dogs most of my life so far, I have never had a young puppy. Wanting to do right by her, I researched training and socialization classes. Baby Dog was the one that was recommended over and over again without hesitation. We've now been going to weekly sessions for three months and my dog while having mastered what they teach loves the class so much that we just keep coming. When I pull up in front of the class she knows what we're there for and her excitement is off the charts. Aviva and her team run amazing classes and they should be the go to for every new puppy owner in Victoria. I studied to be a dog trainer 17 years ago when considering a career change. That said, I have learned a ton from Aviva while having our pup trained and her approach and explanations are much more effective and in line with what dogs need, than what I was originally taught. We are very luck to have Baby Dog as a resource.

We’re so grateful to have found Aviva at BabyDog to help with our two-year-old rescue from Mexico. She went above and beyond to tailor her training to exactly what we needed. From the start, she listened carefully to our goals and truly understood what we wanted to achieve with our dog. The transformation in our dog has been amazing, and we feel much more confident in our own training skills as well. For anyone looking to make a meaningful, lasting change in their dog’s behaviour, we can’t recommend Aviva highly enough!

Dave did a great job helping train us how to train Rex right and gave plenty of useful tips and tricks that have done wonders!

I'm biased, but BabyDog is really rad and they've done a great job with my dogs :)

Between the fun puppy meet and greets and the training, this was a great time for our little Cairn Terrier. Emma was engaging, knowledgeable and excellent to work with and we couldn't be happier with the outcome!

Love, love, love, how much I learned from taking my pup to BabyDog. The group socialization at Bosley’s allowed my pup to play with other pups of different breeds and temperaments while teaching us humans how to understand ‘dog’ body language. It also made for a relaxing day (big nap after play time)!! The group training with Aviva and Ruth in Brentwood and pack walks on Sundays taught me that every time we are in a different situation it is yet another learning opportunity for both of us! We learned a lot in an enjoyable, positive way. We also did some basic obedience with Dave at Tomey K9 Services which taught us how important it is to be consistent and that repetition (with good treats) helps our pups to understand what we are asking of them. The one thing that I will always remember is that Dave said “Our dogs want to please us” !