Testimonials

Cus­tomer Comments

Ain’t Mis­be­havin’ Gen­tle Dog Train­ing was a won­der­ful and reward­ing expe­ri­ence! Our puppy, “May­be­line”, also known as “Maybe”, had sev­eral behav­ioral issues before we start­ing our train­ing with Lou. Maybe dis­played many unwanted behav­iors such as jump­ing, bark­ing at the door when guests arrive, counter surf­ing, and con­stantly chas­ing our cat and rab­bit.  How­ever, none of these behav­iors com­pared to our major con­cern which was her reac­tiv­ity on the leash.  As soon as she would see a per­son or dog the hair on her back would stand up, she’d begin growl­ing, and even­tu­ally go into a bark­ing frenzy.  We were com­pletely clue­less on how to change her behav­ior. We did some online research and attempted to use meth­ods rec­om­mended by var­i­ous train­ers.  Not only did these options not work, we absolutely hated them. We ended up hat­ing to walk our dog because we knew it would lead to the harsh pun­ish­ments we were told would cor­rect her behav­ior.  The train­ing stressed out not only us but Maybe as well.

We had basi­cally given up on train­ing when we were given 6 ses­sions with Lou as a Christ­mas gift.  Even after the fist ses­sion we were ecsta­tic about clicker train­ing. Lou is extremely knowl­edge­able, patient, and easy to work with.  He made train­ing ses­sions fun and excit­ing for all par­ties involved.  Hands down the best part about the train­ing was how much our puppy enjoyed it! We loved to teacher her new behav­iors and boy did she love to learn them.  Teach­ing Maybe to relax on the leash was the hard­est behav­ior to change.  Lou made us con­fi­dent that even­tu­ally, with the help of clicker train­ing, Maybe could have a peace­ful walk on her leash.  We stuck with the reac­tiv­ity train­ing and we are still work­ing with her on a daily basis.  It is an uphill bat­tle but she is improv­ing with every walk.  He informed us that reac­tiv­ity on the leash is some­times the hard­est behav­ior to change but he had no doubt that we would reach our goal.

Lou was also an enor­mous help by mak­ing him­self avail­able in between ses­sions with any ques­tions or con­cerns we might have.  Through­out train­ing Maybe trans­formed into a new dog.  She was very fond of Lou and was thrilled every time he walked through the door.  We are so grate­ful to have met Lou and learned clicker train­ing. Our puppy is much more relaxed now that she under­stands the behav­iors we want from her. Lou helped us learn how to train our puppy in a way that we were finally com­fort­able with which is the best reward of all!

Amanda Rogers
Wayne, PA

We brought Lou into our home to help train Yaya at a time when we were hav­ing a lot of dif­fi­cul­ties with her.  We adopted Yaya from a shel­ter, and ini­tially, she was very good (about one-year old). This may have been due to the ken­nel cough she had, which wore her down, and the tran­si­tion to a new home. After a short “hon­ey­moon period” she began to act up (jump­ing on peo­ple, nip­ping, dig­ging at the rug, chew­ing on wooden furniture).

We asked our vet for advice and she rec­om­mended Lou. Ini­tially, Lou had mis­giv­ings about what could be accom­plished with Yaya, but he per­sisted. His train­ing of Yaya, and the skills and infor­ma­tion he imparted to my wife, daugh­ter and myself helped turn things around.  By the time his train­ing was done, Yaya was a bet­ter behav­ing dog, and we (myself and fam­ily) were in a bet­ter posi­tion to deal with any neg­a­tive behav­iors as they arose.

I would not hes­i­tate to rec­om­mend Lou to any­one who felt they needed help with a dif­fi­cult dog. His patience and under­stand­ing helped us a great deal.

John McAna
Philadel­phia, PA

Mr. Lou Mande is a very knowl­edge­able and pro­fi­cient expo­nent of the oper­ant con­di­tion­ing or clicker train­ing method of dog train­ing.  Lou has an expert grasp on the prin­ci­ples of behav­ior and he has a pas­sion for trans­lat­ing these into eas­ily under­stand­able, every­day lan­guage. Lou’s gift is in tak­ing the oper­ant con­di­tion­ing (clicker train­ing) tech­nol­ogy and mak­ing its meth­ods imme­di­ately avail­able. My nine year-old daugh­ter was train­ing our husky puppy with the clicker in min­utes with astound­ing results.

Not only that, Lou Mande taught me how the oper­ant con­di­tion­ing method could apply to my work with stu­dents diag­nosed with autism and emo­tional and behav­ioral dis­or­ders. This is known as Tagteach­ing.  He even pre­sented his meth­ods to a group of under­grad­u­ate stu­dents I was teach­ing at the time at a local uni­ver­sity. I rec­om­mend him to any­one who desires to imple­ment this pow­er­ful behav­ioral tech­nol­ogy toward rapidly and sus­tain­ably chang­ing the behav­ior of your pet or any per­son you know.

Eric Frey MA, BCBA (Board Cer­ti­fied Behav­ior Ana­lyst)
Philadel­phia, PA

 

My daugh­ter and I were at our wit’s end with my son’s 18 month old Yel­low Lab,
Hud­son! And I was fac­ing sev­eral months when I would be keep­ing Hud­son for my son when he would be at the USN Offi­cer Can­di­date School. I couldn’t see how I was going to be able to do this with­out suf­fer­ing an injury as I have had one knee replace­ment and an ankle held together with a lot of metal. Hud­son was very much still a puppy with a LOT OF ENERGY and STRENGTH. On our walks, Hud­son could pull me down the street or pull me off of my feet if he was star­tled. We couldn’t have peo­ple over because he jumped, think­ing they were his play­mates. If we put Hud­son in his crate, his bark­ing was inces­sant. Being as tall as most tables/counters in our home he ate his share of impor­tant papers, food items and clothing.

The orig­i­nal train­ing that we had gone through with Hud­son was use­less! THANKFULLY, my daugh­ter stum­bled upon a car read­ing “Ain’t Mis­be­havin’, Gen­tle Dog Train­ing.” Upon hear­ing about this, I imme­di­ately googled it and read through the web­site. I emailed Lou that evening, received a phone call from him the next day and imme­di­ately set up a meet­ing to hear about the train­ing. Lou was able to explain to us the the­ory behind the train­ing. He ensured us that it did not involve any abuse of the dog and how the train­ing would progress. Lou’s knowl­edge and con­fi­dence con­vinced me the train­ing was worth a try. AND WE ARE ALL VERY HAPPY THAT WE DID!

After 6 lessons and sev­eral months we are all now very happy with Hud­son and I have no wor­ries about being able to keep him for my son. He has not pulled me off of my feet once since Lou came into our home. We now have a lab who does loose leash walk­ing, doesn’t take off after neigh­bors or other dogs when he is out for a walk, nor does he jump all over friends when they come into our home. We have even had a suc­cess­ful din­ner party in our home. Lou has been a great trainer for both Hud­son and his fam­ily. His avail­abil­ity and desire for us to have a won­der­ful fam­ily dog have con­tin­ued beyond the “offi­cial train­ing”; I feel good know­ing that I am always able to con­tact Lou with a prob­lem and he will give a lit­tle refresher course. My chil­dren and I highly rec­om­mend Lou Mande and his “Ain’t Mis­be­havin’ Gen­tle Dog Train­ing.” I’m thank­ful for the day my daugh­ter read his adver­tise­ment and the day Lou gave me a call.

Mary Martha John­son
Elkins Park, PA

Post­card testimonial

 

Beau’s Story

Beau is a big Mal­tese Poo­dle (27 lb) – a res­cue dog, approx­i­mately three years old.  He was adopted pri­mar­ily to be a com­pan­ion to sev­eral senior sis­ters who reside in our Moth­er­house.  Beau made friends very quickly with our seniors. He loved them. They loved him. The prob­lem with Beau started after only a few days of get­ting to know our con­vent as his “home”.  He became very pro­tec­tive of our senior sis­ters and very unfriendly toward any vis­i­tors.  This was a bit of a con­flict as we uphold hos­pi­tal­ity as an impor­tant value.  Beau would bark fero­ciously and scare friendly vis­i­tors half to death. 

For­tu­nately, I came to know of Lou Mande and Ain’t Mis­be­havin’ Gen­tle Dog Train­ing.  Lou’s love for dogs, calm demeanor, con­fi­dent approach and exper­tise in han­dling our fluff ball (quickly become a ter­ror on four paws) was an answer to prayer.  This was pri­mar­ily because we were heart­sick at the thought of hav­ing to send Beau away.  Beau learned and responded quickly to Lou’s meth­ods of pos­i­tive rein­force­ment.  He def­i­nitely calmed down, partly because we also calmed down in our han­dling of him.  Most impor­tantly, Lou was able to help us face the real­ity that this par­tic­u­lar dog would never be a dog who could freely roam the halls of the con­vent or be off a leash in pub­lic spaces.  His behav­ior was too unpre­dictable as were his trig­gers.  He did learn to obey com­mands and we have come to regard him as a really won­der­ful part of the fam­ily.  He now resides in a much smaller con­vent that has far fewer vis­i­tors.  He still takes his pro­tec­tive role seri­ously and we are grate­ful to have a good lit­tle watch dog. He makes reg­u­lar vis­its to our Moth­er­house and brings great joy to those resid­ing there.   I am ever grate­ful to Lou for the time he ded­i­cated to Beau, the flex­i­bil­ity of his sched­ul­ing and the gen­eros­ity of his time.  In addi­tion to his involve­ment with Beau, Lou donates his time by bring­ing his own two beau­ti­ful dogs to visit senior res­i­dents in both our Moth­er­house and our nearby nurs­ing home.  He is an excel­lent dog trainer, a great peo­ple trainer and an over-all won­der­ful per­son.  I am hon­ored to offer this tes­ti­mony for Lou.

Sr. Anne Marie Haas