Historical Archive

Another important thing to note is that I mentioned to Jeff that I am an avid mountain biker and that I wanted to teach Rita how to ride with me and eventually with a group of riders. Jeff explained that he would come down and go on a ride with me to help. I decided that I would have a try myself and then call Jeff if I needed to. I never had to call Jeff. I never had to call him because of the basic behaviors that Jeff taught Rita and explained to us provided such a good foundation that it only took 3 rides for me to teach her what was expected on the trail.

I don’t even know where to begin with how much Jeff Gellman has helped Badass Brooklyn Animal Rescue. Jeff has literally saved the lives of two dogs whose aggression had gotten so bad that no other trainer would help and the option presented to us was to put them down. In both cases the dogs went to board and train and are living healthy, happy, loved lives. I always thought of Jeff for the toughest cases, but he is great with all dogs and I have become a believer that all dogs can use the basic skills that Jeff teaches.

I took him to puppy classes, dog training classes, worked with several different trainers, took him to 2 sets of Feisty Fido classes at St Huberts in NJ, took him to 2 different vet behaviorists and tried at least 5 different medications (prozac, paxil, amitriptyline, xanax and valium) with very little improvement in his behavior.

I am shocked. Astounded. And on that first day, they came home — in tears. And that evening, a simple “kennel up” and both dogs walked peacefully and willingly into their crates and I was able to shut the doors. No whining, no crying, nothing. They slept, snoring. I don’t know whatever became of that other Hermione and Angus, but these new “improved” dogs, these wonderful creatures that are a joy to be around and who look to us now with love and respect, so willing to please — we think we’ll keep them!

Thank you again for your help with Finn in your Walk Guru program. I continue to give him two 20-30 minute walks a day and he is making such great progress with heeling and his reactivity to other dogs. When I need to get his heeling in check I use the “follow” protocol for a while and that does the trick. Everyone at the SmartPak office is so impressed with how he doesn’t react to other dogs now, even when they react strongly to him.

A week after we brought Rocky home we began working with Jeff. When I say there were instant results, I am not exaggerating. After addressing our issues on the walk, we moved inside to learn the Place command, which immediately began to change his energy in the house. From there on we were able to build a really solid foundation based on Jeff’s philosophy that dog training is not learning a series of tricks, it’s teaching your dog how to make good choices in the real world.