Meet Sarah Hills and her dog Sienna...

Sienna is an Australian Shepard. He is a little under a year and had developed a bad habit when on the leash (he is good with other dogs when off) of barking and whining when other dogs are around. He also had become quite insecure and backs up when he gets nervous and his first reaction is to aggressively bark. The final straw was him snapping at a friend of the home while they were walking by him.

The first time I met Sienna, he gave me quite a greeting. He barked ferociously and would back up and it took everything for Sarah to control him. Everytime she held him back, he would fight 10 times worse. I wasn't able to touch him at all during the evaluation because he was so scared of me.

We have been doing basic obedience with him and Sarah has done a brilliant job with following through with the training. She calls me when she has questions so that we can try to work it out over the phone so she can keep progressing with the actual lessons. It's been a pleasure working with her.

Anyway, Sienna has made really good progress. Sarah can take him to places and lie him down and he will stay. This was unheard of when we started. I met with her today and she informed that things were getting better, however, her dog took two steps back in which we worked on today. It happens. I will come back and edit this diary with more of her progress...I lost track of time...I have to leave.