Verified Company
Verified
I hesitated to write this for nearly a year because I believe Cheryl is passionate about what she does, however, her training was not a good fit for us, and we did not see results, despite spending $1700. For what it's worth, she's respectful, prompt, and brought her own dog to a few sessions to help my puppy with anxiety. She also has a good game for place training, and when I switched away from her methods this was the only thing we kept doing.
This review will be long, but this is the main takeaway. I'd caution anyone from considering this "balanced training". It is not. The primary goal is conditioning a prong collar correction to a verbal "No!". It is purely punitive, not balanced. It's no different (& arguably worse) than the traditional 'crank & yank' style described in her book, just dressed up nicer. I'd advise future customers to use *EXTREME* caution if considering using an e-collar with Raise the Bar. An e-collar is NOT a punishment tool that you can slap on and hammer a dog with. For any behavior. Increasing punishment without clarifying the alternative desired behavior creates conflict. It's bad for the owner-dog relationship. Despite this, when unclear prong collar corrections didn't work, escalating to the e-collar was suggested at every single session. When I had concerns about shut down dogs/frustration, or feeling uncomfortable with the w/the level of corrections, I was met with contempt and told that based on 30yr of experience, this is just how it's done. Years of experience don't equal best practice.
1. Prong collar- it needs to be properly fitted. A loose prong (recommended by Cheryl) delivers inconsistent corrections and takes away the physics of the collars design, so you're no longer protecting the trachea or distributing pressure evenly. She recommended increasing the gauge of prong when corrections weren't working. I tried to discuss that this would require more force to deliver a similar correction, but shut down and told a 2.25 is a "puppy collar". In reality it delivers a higher level correction or "bite" with less leash pop. Most dogs should not be using a 4mm prong, especially loose, bc it's virtually ineffective.
2. Balanced training uses all quadrants of operant conditioning. Raise the Bar is almost entirely punishment based. Praise is not positive reinforcement. You can't be balanced and anti-treat/reward. When you hire a private trainer, you're paying for someone to train you, not your dog, and when asked 'why' she does things, she's not able to articulate it well.
3. Leash pressure- she couldnt get 1 of my dogs on the placeboard and gave up when he put the brakes on and reared back on the leash. She couldn't see that he just didn't understand leash pressure (which I've now taught him). He needed to be encouraged to go on in a way he understood. Next visit when he was on it she asked how, & I told her I was able to get him on in minutes with treats and free shaping, she was disappointed I had used food despite her method being ineffective.
4. **E-COLLAR**- please do NOT let Cheryl put an e-collar on your dog. I am SO glad I was enrolled in an e-collar course before she started suggesting it. She lacks fundamental knowledge of modern day e-collar use, likely bc it relies on foundations she doesn't use (ie a positive marker word & reward, low-level stim overlayed on well known commands via neg reinforcement, working under threshold). For crate anxiety she suggested putting an e-collar on my fearful puppy, & stimming at high levels until quiet, also suggested dropping a heavy textbook on the crate. Frankly this is abhorrent training. My dogs are now all e-collar trained and it's rarely ever necessary to use at aversive levels , esp not paired with "No" to induce handler fear and certainly not on a fearful/reactive dog.
I could go on, because I don't think this is individualized training, but will digress. This training is conflict & punishment based & we did not reach any goals with her methods. I am pro-balanced, but this is compulsion. I'd suggest she expand her knowledge because her current methods have the potential to do serious harm. My relationship with my dogs was never worse than when we trained with Raise the Bar.
The best thing about this experience, was that it lit a fire in me to learn to train dogs myself. They're now off leash heeling, hiking, no more reactivity, even went on a trip with us. Our results speak for themselves. I'll leave it there.
