Sit Happens

My husband and I decided to go with Sit Happens because their method of training and disciplining a dog are effective as long as the dog owners pair the training with consistency. At first I was skeptical due to the usage of an e-collar as it was my husband who attended the free consultation so I was uninformed beforehand on how the e-collar works. But now I know the e-collar is a safe way to ensure that our puppy listens to us in the face of any possible hazards/dangers when she is off leash and out of our reach. After attending all of my puppy’s initial one-on-one training sessions with Marilyn and all the puppy playtime with other Sit Happens students (puppy socialization) we now see better cooperation from our playful yet stubborn shih tzu. Starting her training and socialization at a young age, she does not have any anxiety and fear when exploring the world around her when we take her to different environments. I believe with Sit Happens our puppy will continue to grow into a confident, independent, and well trained dog. To top it all off, our puppy absolutely LOVES her trainer Marilyn. Whenever she sees Marilyn she immediately runs towards her and gives her an enthusiastic greeting.

Deciding to train my three legged rescue, Rusty, was one of the best decisions I've made both for my dog and myself.When we adopted him we found that he had some training with whomever had him previously (sit, down, beside me on walks), but his general anxiety and fear of new people and dogs made it difficult to go on walks and have new people over. Who can blame him really, he went through a lot this year, getting a leg removed!From the initial meeting and training with Jeff to the group training on weekends with Marilyn, Rusty has grown from a fearful dog into one with confidence!The training you'll receive from Sit Happens begins first with the owner, building their confidence and from there, the dogs! The training truly works and I absolutely recommend it to anyone looking to work on a solid communication with their dog.Rusty is a great example of the training he's gotten and everywhere I go, people want to know how his recall is so great and how well behaved he is.Thank you Jeff and Marilyn for all of your help!

I needed help controlling my large, reactive Bernedoodle, and had tried many other forms of training. Within the first two weeks at Sit Happens he became SIGNIFICANTLY less distracted, learned to focus on us (his humans!), comes on command, and no longer pulls on his leash. I've always wanted an off-leash dog and never imagined it'd be possible until now.

We got our puppy, a German Shepard, Pyrenees mix when he was 10 weeks old, he had spent a few days travelling across the country to meet us. He is a rescue and he is the first dog for our family, so frankly I didn't really know what to expect.We spent a bunch of time looking through YouTube videos, doing positive reinforcement training, and while he was making progress, it was still quite frustrating, and obedience was nowhere in sight for us, so we decide to look for help training our puppy especially because this was going to be a large dog. We wanted to make sure we would have a well behaved dog that we could trust and would be happy in our family.We reached out to quite a few trainers, and Marylin responded promptly and booked an intro session. She walked us through the program and introduced her to her dog and showed us what was possible. The big focus of the program is obedience, to keep your dog happy and healthy and safe. We were introduced to the e-collar, and at first I was apprehensive, but Marylin walked us through the process, let us feel the impact of the collar and explained the philosophy of how the collar is used. We decided to trust the process and enrolled.I'm so glad that we did, this gave us us and our dog better tools to communicate and reinforce positive behaviour, while still being able to get out puppy's attention. Other reviewers have mentioned how the process works so I won't repeat that, but at it's core the collar is a tool to get the dog's attention and allow the dog to focus on the command you are issuing.Ollie is now 6 months old, and he's a happy loving dog and the whole family loves walking with him. He's great in designated off-leash areas and is generally a well behaved puppy.One closing comment, this was our first family dog, and we weren't aware how important it was to socialize our dog with other puppies and other people. Marylin gave us some strategies to try and get our puppy socialized with COVID and I'm glad that we did, it made walking Ollie so much nicer since we've done that.I can't recommend the Sit Happens program enough.

We started Sit Happens with our 16 week old GSDxPyranees in January and after just 2 months he's learned the basic obedience commands and behaves beautifully in public. I trust him off leash on designated off leash dog trails with other dogs passing. He still loves to say hello when he's allowed but will sit nicely and not bark at passers-by.The training program comes with life time access to the group training classes so the training has been ongoing and we learn new things every week. The distancing protocols are well done as well though I do hope COVID safety time is coming to an end in the next few months!I was apprehensive about the ecollar at first because of methods I'd seen online but the method used by Sit Happens is nothing like those! The ecollar provided with the cost of the program is highly rated and comes with 100 levels so if you have a sensitive dog like ours it can be set very low to the point where I can't feel it at all.I highly recommend this training program to anyone with either a new dog or a dog that needs some training support!

I have a sheltie with an intense chase drive and absolutely no training was working on him. We took him to months of training with multiple trainers, and he still lunged at every moving thing. I only wish I had found Sit Happens from the very beginning because within the first class, he immediately improved. Marilyn is an amazing trainer - very straightforward, gives great examples, and always checks if we have any questions. I can say from having tried 3 of the other dog training companies in Burnaby that Sit Happens is head and shoulders above the rest. Don’t bother doing the other training - go to this one!! Thank you guys!!!

JEFF and his training methods have changed our lives.... No exaggeration! Dexter, our 5 year old goldendoodle, had become reactive on and off leash to other dogs. It got to the point where I was afraid to take him out. Then someone recommended Jeff. After only 1 class ( we did 3 private and continued on to group training) Dexter was a different dog and I am no longer afraid or anxious with him on walks. I can take him to the dog park and have no problems with other dogs. Some people, well, a lot of people, don't understand E collars. It does not hurt the dog at all! My kids and I tried it on our palms at 3 times the level of what we use with dexter and all we felt was a strange tingling. I would recommend this method 100%!!!!

We first heard of SIT Happens back in 2005. We were looking for a training program for our golden retriever puppy and I was impressed at how well behaved an acquaintance's dogs were. She said SIT Happens is the best" so we contacted Jeff and signed up. The program was fantastic and soon people were commenting on how well mannered our golden girl was. A couple of months ago we adopted another puppy and without hesitation contacted Jeff again. We've attended only a few classes and already people have been commenting on what a well-mannered puppy we have.I have found Jeff and the team to be incredibly knowledgeable

There are too many good things to write about Sit Happens! When we first decided to get our puppy, we researched many trainers locally and were met with challenges facing response, getting information, scheduling or seeing success cases, Sit Happens was immediately responsive, scheduled an introduction session and showed as many successfully trained dogs! The warmth from our trainer was undeniable and our pup fell in love immediately (honestly, her favourite person other than her grandma!).My partner and I grew up with aggressive dogs that were meant to protect property, as loving as they are to us at home, they weren't a dog you were comfortable to walk in public, all we knew when we got our current pup is we wanted a dog that we could trust, and have no fear bringing in public. With Sit Happens, we've gotten that request and even more. We have a less than a year old pup that walks like a dream on and off leash, holds and reognizes multiple commands and receives nothing but compliments from anyone who meets her.We do and will continue to recommend everyone we can to Sit Happens, they're simply fantastic.

Lucy is a rescue dog who came to me just over two years ago from California. She didn't know anything when she arrived. She couldn't walk on a leash, wouldn't come when called, and had no manners at all. The first thing I did when I realized this was to call Sit Happens! I wanted her trained quickly and I wanted real results. Little did I know how amazing that training would be... and how much fun it would be for both of us.After two years, we still go to class! Why? Because Lucy loves Sit Happens. It's such an enjoyable, positive, and rewarding experience for her. She adores Jeff, Marilyn and Juergen. And I get to talk to some of the most devoted dog owners on the planet. You never have to feel your dog is a hopeless case. Even if your dog has failed with other trainers or with other training methods, Jeff and his team are there to help. And they will! They take on tough cases and turn them right around into well-behaved, happy companions.Because of Sit Happens, I can take Lucy anywhere and she is welcome in the homes of all my friends and family. I meet people every day who remark on how well-behaved and happy she is. Often these folks have out-of-control, crazy dogs and they're not enjoying the experience very much. I always tell them that their dog can be well-behaved, too, just call Sit Happens!I think some people don't realize that a dog is aching to be told what to do. Every dog in the pack knows it's place because the leader tells them what to do, but we humans confuse our dogs and make them neurotic by not providing any real leadership. In a dog pack, the reward for behaving is not a cookie, but the perfect comfort of knowing your place and what you're supposed to do. That's what makes a happy, relaxed dog that everybody loves. That's what Sit Happens will give you.The e-collar is the most humane training tool for dogs; it's very gentle, yet gives immediate results. Your dog is rewarded for obedience, just like in a dog pack! When your dog runs towards a busy street or into the middle of a fight at the dog park, you'd better have a perfect recall... and you can't get that with just a cookie in your pocket.A few days ago, my two grandsons and I were unloading backpacks, guitars and overnight bags from my car. In the confusion I mistakenly gave Lucy the free" command