Dog House Training Academy

If I could give Leah and her services a 10 I would. Let me start by saying that we don’t have a «normal» dog. Buddy, our almost 18 month black lab was an absolute terror. My husband and I brought him home when our daughter was 6 months old and shortly after we had another baby. This led to a busy lifestyle and a very untrained and crazy dog. We were at our wits end with Buddy. Nobody in our extended family could stand to be around our dog. We tried everything we could do ourselves and we decided we either had to hire a trainer or give him back to the breeder to find a good home for him. Then came Leah. She literally transformed our dog into a calm, trained and lovable house pet that is loved by all. He can sit, stay, lay down, go to his bed, go to his kennel, eat food out of my hand NICELY when I offer it to him, walk perfectly on a leash with our stroller and most importantly he is wonderful around our kids. We now have the dog we always wanted and Buddy is a happy happy trained dog. Leah is literally the dog whisperer of Phoenix. If you are struggling with a crazy dog she is worth every penny we spent using her services.

I was in your position about a year and a half ago. I had a dog that I loved very much but it seemed that she didn’t love me or at least she was oblivious to me. You see, Agent Scully BS MD wasn’t always the amazing Border Collie she is today. She had experienced severe neglect with her prior owner, had endless unfocused energy, and I had never been a dog owner before. It was a recipe for disaster.
She had been barking incessantly and irritating my neighbors while I was away, she escaped from her play area and ate about seven pounds of her dog food while I was at work, she would shrilly whine continuously when I was with her, and was digging holes in the yard at every opportunity among other bad behaviors. In fact, she actually had bitten another dog when I was, like you, searching online for a trainer.
I had her for about 6 months and Agent Scully BS MD had been increasing her bad behavior to the point I remember thinking, «How can I possibly keep this dog? I love her but she is so naughty.» And then one day we were both hanging out at my boyfriends parent’s place and my boyfriend’s brother started playing with their dog. It had gotten a little bit out of hand and that dog growled. Agent Scully BS MD heard this and went right over to try to settle things… which resulted in about 5 staples for the family Basset Hound. It was such an odd behavior to see play out and it terrified me.
My beautiful fluffy girl was actually a cold hearted bitch that I couldn’t predict.
At that point in time the only thing friends were telling me was, «You can’t change a dog like that», «if it wants to bite it will bite», and «you can never trust a dog» and for a long while I believed them. That is, until I found this very page online late one night. These reviews made me feel like I wasn’t stuck and maybe there was hope for us.
So we scheduled an assessment with Leah to help with my girl’s dislike of children. Looking back I bet she could see how disconnected I was from Agent Scully BS MD. At the end of the 30 minute session my little terrorist was able to take a treat from the child’s hand without acting like she wanted to kill him. Rather, she was happy that this tiny human had copious amounts of hot dog. It amazed me. (I should say too that Leah is a professional trainer and it was an extremely controlled environment where there was no risk to the child getting hurt. It also was Leah’s kid so I felt confident that she wouldn’t let anything bad happen from this.)
After that session I noticed my dog actually would look at me periodically on walks. It was monumental. We then started taking socialization classes and the Intermediate course where we would be «that dog» in class. You know, the one barking continuously and not paying attention. I was embarrassed by my dog’s antics but Leah never made me feel like the odd person out. Instead she would helpfully correct Agent Scully BS MD and by emulating Leah I, with time, had more control over this wild child than I could ever even imagine.
I did want to mention one aspect that added to this great experience with Dog House Training Academy; Leah has a great teaching style. You see, I’m an awful auditory learner and often times she will say directions that I can’t follow because my mind goes in a thousand different directions. I was just not built that way and she never made me feel dumb for doing something wrong. I’m a far better kinesthetic learner so she would walk through the physical process of the directions with me and I was able to retain the information far better.
So flashforward to right now, Agent Scully BS MD is sleeping peacefully at my feet as I write this. It’s been a year and a half of hard work and we have not had any incident. The only time I ever hear her whine is when I ask her to and I reward her with a treat. I have yet to hear a complaint from any neighbors and I’ve lived in this apartment for over a year. Agent Scully BS MD improved so vastly that I actually bring her to work with me and she happily greets everyone who comes into my office. Oh, and the only biting of dogs that happens is when playing nicely with her sister. Going to Leah’s training made me more confident in dog ownership to the point where I added a new fur child to my family with no concerns.
One of the most important things I learned from this experience is that I now have the ability to read Agent Scully BS MD’s behavior. I know when she’s overwhelmed in a noisy environment, excited that I just taunted her with a rope toy, mad that she didn’t get her way, or weirded out by someone intimidating who popped out of nowhere. And looking back at the incident where she bit another dog if it happened now I would be able to see the red flags that she was pissed off and I would have interceded earlier.
Moral to the story; go to Leah for dog training and you won’t regret it.

We just completed intermediate training with Blair who was awesome! This was a different approach to training than I had previously and I was very pleased with the outcome. I’m just sad that there are no more group trainings occurring. If you want your dog to learn in a pawsitive environment, this place is the place to go!

I was very happy with the Puppy 101 class taught by Blair! She did an absolute wonderful job and was super patient. She even took the time to help dogs that were struggling with various things.
The only reason I am giving it four stars instead of five is because of the large class size (nine dogs) and the corresponding small class room. I guess maybe in a more advanced class it would be okay, but when puppies are trying to socialize it made the class more difficult. Could not wait to sign my dog up for the Intermediate class only to find out they are done teaching. Hope they recommend their clients to a comparable trainer!

I found Leah online when I was looking for obedience classes, and it wasnt until about 6 months later that my dogs food aggression became an issue. She was able to help us with his training, and i am happy to say that after about 9 months of training he is completely amazing, i am able to put my hands directly on his face and into his bowl without any kind of reaction, besides looking for a treat: P She helped me so much! I would recommend her 100%

We had Leah help us a few years ago and totally forgot to leave a review. We found Leah because she was offering a Unilocal deal and we are so glad we did. We just got a dog that was obviously abused before and needed help socializing around others. When we first arrived to class, our dog, Roxy, was barking and always moving. At the end, she stayed when commanded and didn’t bark, as much haha. We love Leah and recommend everyone should go to her for their dog’s needs!!!

Talk about a life saver! My lovable pound hound Aspen was quite the hyper-​focused pup. Cat? Rabbit? Dog? Bird? At the sight of any other animal there was intense pulling, whining, barking, spinning on the end of the leash, and just crazy intensity! There was no getting her attention back. I’d tried most training tools, that were really just a bandaid for the problem, not a solution.
Yes, admitting your dog has reactivity issues isn’t fun, but fixing them isn’t as out of reach as we thought!
NOW, Aspen walks on the leash beside me, no spinning on the end of the leash, no barking, and very rare whining– to be fair, she is still attending class. :) Finding Leah as a trainer was the best possible outcome for me. She takes the time to teach you how to work with your dog, not just expect you to just pick it up.
Intermediate training is next now that Aspen can function around other dogs! Yippee!

This is THE place to go if you need obedience training!
We are in the obedience class with Blair, and only 3 weeks in, we are seeing a huge difference! I can’t believe the dog we started with is the same dog I have at home now, and we are only half way through.
Blair is so helpful and patient with all the dogs (and the humans!) — I never leave a class without feeling confident of my follow-​through at home.
I can’t wait to take the tricks class next!

Leah is so FANTASTIC with dogs ! Our Great Dane and *little buddy* Diesel is now a good boy and plays nice with others dogs. I don’t usually write these but, I just had to here because Dog House Training Academy is so good at what they do. I highly recommend Puppy 101, Intermediate and Advanced. The results will amaze !

We just got a great dane puppy a few months ago. We are very new to the breed but have a bullmastiff and boxer. I was really worried that this puppy will grow to be an unruly 170 lb dog. I found Dog House Training Academy and enrolled both Jax (the great dane) and Gemma (the bullmastiff). We are part way through the training and I will say that both are doing amazing! Leah’s easy to follow training style is perfect. She trains the humans so that we can train our furry family members. I love her enthusiasm and would recommend her to anyone!

Our puppy just graduated from the Puppy 101 course this week. Leah is awesome with helping all of the dogs out and had an answer to help all our problems. We just got another puppy and he is already signed up for her training to begin in February. So glad we decided to go here!
Thanks, Leah!

Our first time taking the training class! We were extremely Impressed with LEAH! Just after one class, we learned so much about the behavior of Akira, our deaf Pit Bull and what commands we need to work on. I highly recommend her services to anyone. Leah is not only Knowledgeable, she is Very PATIENT!

We love Dog House Training Academy! When we got our Black and Tan Coonhound Oakley, everyone told us how stubborn hounds were and that he couldn’t be trained.
Well, they were wrong. Danae has been our trainer through Puppy 101, Intermediate and Advanced; and we just adore her and how much she has helped us train our first dog. She took all of his silly rolling around and stubborn barking in stride and helped us resolve any issues we had at home.
We are so proud of Oakley and how much he has grown while being at Dog House Training Academy. They don’t just teach your dogs, they teach YOU as owners what you may be doing wrong and how to correct it. They always have solutions.
The Puppy 101 course really guides you in not only training your puppy, but also in raising them, which was so helpful for us as newbie puppy parents. We loved the advanced training sessions that were in public places; because it really tested our dog and taught him how to listen with distractions in a hustle and bustle environment and to be social with other people/​children/​animals.
Their monthly Yappy Hour meet-​ups are a lot of fun for Oakley and us, giving him the opportunity to meet other dogs, play and learn good socialization skills. The owner, Leah, has created an awesome community!
If you are looking into training for your dog with people who genuinely care about you and your animals, who are professionals, and have a fun community to boot, then don’t hesitate!

After rescuing a 2 year old Chihuahua/​Jack Russell Terrier mix, it quickly became apparent that we needed professional help to train her to be a good little doggie. We went to another trainer in town who obviously hadn’t ever worked with small dogs and our poor Britta ended the session by puking up the ridiculous amount of treats the trainer used. So we decided to look to Unilocal.And we are so glad we did! Leah is so good with Britta! We had 2 private sessions which really helped — especially since we haven’t ever had a dog before — we were even walking her wrong! Leah quickly trained us how to walk Britta to give her confidence. After the 2 private sessions, we attended a Meet & Greet to work on socialization. These workshops are FANTASTIC and so affordable! Finally, Leah is so tuned in to her pupils, she suggested that we move our 2 year old to a puppy beginner class rather than the adult class since our Britta has some fear of other dogs — especially big dogs. We’ve only been to 2 of the beginner classes, but we already see improvement everyday with Britta — she is becoming more confident and we are hopeful that she will be a happy social dog someday soon!
I highly recommend Leah for personal and professional attention to both your dog and your family

I contacted Leah to prepare for a trip to take my three dogs to Dog Beach. We went to a couple of private lessons to work on some useful things for Dog Beach. We came up with a plan and Leah was beyond flexible with her schedule to meet ours. Training was so much fun. Leah is funny, and gives clear direction so you know what you are doing! She also gives you insight into understanding what the dogs are thinking or why they are acting a certain way. More importantly I felt no judgement about how I am with my dogs. They are my babies and I may overlook small behaviors that are actually more of a problem. Since our first lessons, I have gone to many meet and greets workshops and just signed up for an eight week class. I am beyond happy with the progress my dogs are making. I am so happy I found Dog House Training!!!

I found Leah online when I was looking for a class for our new puppy. I knew we wanted to do training for him, but I was hesitant to do classes at Petsmart or Petco because they’re expensive and didn’t hear the best reviews. I’m so glad I did, Leah was awesome and she really knows what she’s doing. She has classes for all levels and even though ours was a puppy, she also has a lot of experience with older dogs with bad habits. She was so sweet and patient, and she really trains «you» how to work with your dog. Anyone whose dog is not showing improvement after a few classes is most likely because you are not consistent at home. You can’t go to the class and expect that a one hour a week class will fix behavior problems. You have to continue to teach your dog and practice and enforce what you’re learning at home too.
I would love to take our dog to one of the more advanced classes someday when I have the time. They even do Out On The Town activities for the dogs where they learn to behave in public places, even sit/​lay down and stay for a long time all while people and other animals walk by. It’s impressive and I would highly recommend Leah to anyone! They also do fun events, she did a dog costume party for Halloween and we all met at the park with our dogs and played games with them like musical «sit», bobbing for hot dogs, and other fun stuff. She’s great!

So you get yourself a puppy or an adult dog and you find yourself with two choices.
1. Don’t train your dog. Let him/​her run around and do what it wants, jump up on people, eat your furniture, bite people, pull your arm out of its socket when you walk him, etc, etc.
2. Go to dog training classes.
Yeah, number 2 is the right answer. For a very reasonable price ($ 125) we signed up Anka our brand new 3 month old puppy. Anka is a strong-​willed German Shepherd with a high drive and before training was happy to do anything SHE wanted to. After completing our 8 week training class, Anka can now sit, down, wait, stay on command and come when called. She walks on a leash wonderfully now. She doesn’t jump up on people any more and she is a lot more comfortable amongst other dogs and people.
Leah is very knowledgeable and patient. She spends time both with the class as a whole and with your dog individually. Every one of the dogs in our class improved dramatically over the course of 8 weeks. The transformation was quite amazing to see.
I picked Leah because of her history with German Shepherds, but she knows about all dogs. We were so happy with the puppy class that, without hesitation, signed up for the intermediate class and probably the advanced class after that!

Leah and Dog House Training Academy came highly recommended from friends at my nearby dog park in downtown Phoenix — that’s an excellent testament right there!
I found our 8 month old puppy Penny, running in traffic back in November. She is likely a pit-​bull/​whippet mix, on the small side but packed with the energy both those breeds bring! Penny has wonderful social skills, even if she’s a bit like a roller derby queen when it comes to rough and tumble play, and she is also very smart, so training her was only complicated by my and my husband’s inability to re-​train ourselves as pup-​parents!
Leah gives clear direction and examples and achievable homework assignments. She is patient and firm with all of us. She will work with you individually on trouble areas, giving specific gradient steps to infill for targeted behavior challenges. In truth, she says it is us humans who are truly her most difficult students; but breaking our bad habits is something she does with deft skill! What I love about Leah’s training is that it doesn’t give room for you to get angry with your dog for them not understanding what you are asking them to do. If your pup isn’t achieving the goal, it is 95% sure that it is the human behavioral consistency that is missing. Correction is gentle and rewards are sweet (and sometimes tasty!) Leah reminded us to be much more vocal in our praise and that is exactly what Penny blossoms with!
Our classes were not conveniently located for us; however, after experiencing the benefits of Leah’s training, I would travel to the moon to take her classes!
Thank you for such a great experience Leah! You are awesome!

I had the fortune of meeting Leah through very unique circumstances. She volunteers with the White German Shepherd rescue, helping some of these wild unruly dogs find basic manners and in doing so, speeds them up towards getting a forever home.
My dog used to be her foster. For quite a long time actually– a period of at least 6 months. So I was incredibly lucky– upon adopting my Miyu she was pretty much fully trained! Leah demands excellent obedience of all the dogs that live in her home, and my girl was no exception. If anything I was the one that had to learn how to handle her, not the other way around! In fact, in a span of two months after adopting Miyu we successfully took and passed our Canine Good Citizen test. That’s how effective she is.
So really, I live every day with the good foundation that Leah laid down with my dog. Something I very much appreciate, as she is a true blue german shepherd– drivey, strong and sharp minded. Shepherds need a firm hand and structure, something which she taught Miyu to do, and taught me how to keep up!
I’ve also been fortunate enough to take a couple more classes with Leah– an intermediate class and an advanced class. Now if you’re pondering whether or not it’s necessary to do more training, I say YES. Yes, it is. After our intermediate I wasn’t sure if I needed more, but when the opportunity came to take the advanced I said sure, why not?
And this is as real as it gets. You polish and hone down stays, sit stays, and acceptable behavior in extremely difficult real life situations. A previous Unilocaler mentioned finding Leah because she spotted a class at the dog park. This is 100% accurate. For our first advanced class we took our dogs to outside the dog park, to learn down stays even in an environment with people and other dogs (some friendly, some not so friendly) walking to and fro. You work them in a heel through a Harbor Freight store. Through a mall. On and on. You hone their focus in situations that demand it. Just really awesome work for the dogs in general. This is stuff that is groundwork for therapy dogs and even for service dogs. I know she’s also planning an Advanced II class after hearing feedback from us crazy Advanced students that will push our dogs even further. I’m looking forward to that!
If you’re not as hard core as we are she also does little one time workshops, and a really fun tricks class as well as a Rally-​O class. That I think will be our next class. (For the uninitiated, Rally O is a dog sport whereby you compete in obedience, navigating a course set up for you. It’s fun, more relaxed and more beginner friendly than true blue AKC style Obedience.)
As the other reviews mentioned, she’s very affordable, and holds many classes at many different times, so it really isn’t that hard to find one that will suit a schedule. If you’re looking for a great trainer who helps you to build your bond and learn how to effectively work and train your dog, this is the place to go! If you’re like me who’s a nut and wants to really work your dog to a higher level, she’s still a great place to go! So really. Just go check her out already.

I was told about Dog House from a friend who signed up for the Beginner Class. I had been looking for some training for my young pug (who thinks its funny to run away from me into on-​coming traffic –true story) for a while. However, I had given up hope looking because most training was out of my price range. BUT, I heard about Leah’s $ 99 beginner class and I signed up on a whim– It was the best thing I’ve done for my dog (besides vaccines!). Leah was a very knowledgeable and caring teacher. In the beginner class, we went through all the basics– sit, stay, wait, lay down, etc. It was well worth the money– in fact I feel like i got a fantastic deal and should have paid more!
Thanks Leah (Dog House)!