We adopted Cooper from our local Rescue Organization who had rescued him from a high kill shelter that had picked him up off the streets covered in ticks and fleas, skinny and running out of hope.  We immediately started looking for a professional trainer to teach us how to help him adjust to his role/place in his new “pack”, and “re-civilize” him.  Cooper has a wonderful personality, eager to please, a sweet and affectionate fellow, still a puppy at 1.5 to 2 years old, but he is also ...a 90 pound German Shepherd – capable of “loving me into a coma” with his exuberant licking and desire to be a lap dog.   He was jockeying for dominance and quickly took ownership of me as his new favorite and beloved toy.  Not only did he need to learn the basics of polite and safe behavior at home and out in public (heel, sit, lie down, stay, come, leave it, etc.), but also I needed to learn how to project an aura of “alpha” calm and confidence to him so he would accept that I occupied the dominant role, not him, and feel secure and confident with that.
From the moment Emilio walked into our living room and started interacting with Cooper I could see he had the knowledge, the skill, and the inside track on dog psychology to teach us how to reach those goals and bring harmony, control, and willing cooperation to the new dynamic in our household.  And this proved to be absolutely correct!  After just the first week of training things improved dramatically, I could sit down on the couch without having my beloved but LARGE dog try to climb up on my lap and show his affection by mouthing me to pieces, I was no longer covered in slobber and could sit in a chair by myself while he would lie on the floor next to me happily chewing one of his real toys, not me, my shoes...  By the end of the 3rd week he knew how to sit, down, down stay, heel, leave it, etc.   Through positive, patient, clear, calm, consistent and self assured authority, my 90 pound puppy understood what I wanted from him and was eager and willing to comply knowing his reward was ample and heartyapproval and ‘at-a-boys from me.  By the end of the 5 weeks we now have complete confidence in him to follow our lead when we are out and about, and to respect our boundaries and house rules when we are at home.  He is much calmer and cooperative, because he knows what is expected of him.  Emilio’s teaching and training is responsible for this peaceful coexistence.  We just practice what we learned everyday and stay consistent in our expectations and in our manner of communication, and the unruliness and chaos is ancient history.
I keep in mind what Emilio made clear straight out – Cooper is a dog, he thinks like a dog, reacts like a dog, and as smart as a German Shepherd is, he’s still a dog who has learned to live with humans through domestication.  His basic instincts, his mentality, and social behaviors and needs – the pecking order he observes -are canine.  Understand these and you can make yourself understood to your dog and he will react to you in a predictably canine way that you can anticipate and count on.  Emilio trained us to understand Cooper, how to communicate to him what we wanted from him, and he trained Cooper to understand and cooperate with us. We are very pleased with the outcome; the cost is very well spent time and money.  We very much recommend Emilio and know that we would never have gotten anywhere near this pointwith our beloved pup without his services.  Cooper is our ever-loyal dog, our best friend, a member of our family – we are the alpha members of his pack.   Thank you Emilio.  You are very good at what you do!

Joyce and Bernard L