When Hounds Fly

As new dog owners, we dived deep to find a dog trainer in vancouver. Many on google were not certified and did not offer up to date force-free training methods.We came across When Hounds Fly after having had poor experiences elsewhere in the city- and we are so extremely grateful to have enrolled our pup Rafa into the program here.Sarah is able to distill each class into steps that build on each other - if your pup struggles on a particular skill, she can make recommendations and provide guidance on what we can do to make things work. The classes are so well run and structured that you come away feeling accomplished having taught your dog something new - using entirely force free training methods! The puppy drop-ins are also incredibly fun for pups and owners. Our pup leaves WHF with a smile on her face every week in the car ride home so we know we made the right choice.Most importantly, Sarah understands both dogs AND humans. She has never made us feel inadequate as dog owners, even if our pup can be difficult at times. Thank you Sarah and the team here for providing so much love for Rafa and teaching her foundational (and life saving) skills to set her up for life :)

We've had an amazing experience at When Hounds Fly with our new puppy! Both Sarah and Katie are incredible - they make teaching puppies fun :) The environment is very positive, and the content very easy to digest and we were quick to get results. Both Sarah and Katie answered all our questions knowledgably and without judgment, and were quick to offer suggestions if they saw an opportunity for us to improve. I have so appreciated their time and attention!

I enrolled my dog in the Puppy Start Right and Foundations program. The classes are well organized and packed with useful content. Sarah is an amazing and excellent trainer. My puppy is always happy to see her and is always excited to go to class. I highly recommend these classes with Sarah!

I wanted to write a balanced review of both positive and less than positive aspects to our training school experience, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . This is gonna be a love letter to the skills and attitude of Sarah and Megan of When Hounds Fly, because in terms of negatives in our experience, I drew a blank.Teacher Sarah and her teaching assistant Megan were always very professional, knowledgeable, patient and empathetic with our challenge of a puppy, Riot. Despite his frequent outbursts they always maintained a good humour about him, and viewed these as a sign of a dog with challenges for us all to overcome together, and not a bad dog or troublemaker to ignore.Sarah let us come in the door before the start of class more than once so that we could let Riot get in some safe runaround time, and was always quick to answer our frequent questions and requests for advice. Megan was always there to provide assistance and insight when playtime became overwhelming for Riot, and was very reassuring when we occasionally got stressed out or embarrassed by his antics in trying to get to the other dogs.I can’t emphasize enough that our primary concern with our puppy in a new environment was safety. Within a few minutes of our first visit those concerns were gone; Sarah and Megan were never less than vigilant during off-leash playtime to make sure the dogs weren’t just safe with each other, but also unstressed and genuinely enjoying their time together.Needless to say, Riot’s behaviour and obedience in general have improved remarkably in just a few sessions. We will definitely be back for more classes and play sessions!

Sarah is an amazing instructor who has endless love for dogs and she helped our Hudson learn the basics of training, communication and socialization. We would 100% recommend When Hounds Fly and Sarah! Your investment (time, money and energy) in these early phases of your puppy will payoff tremendously in the upcoming months and years. The classes are very well organized and the hand outs are very thorough and helpful. But what made all the difference was Sarah's exceptional knowledge, endless love for puppies and her ability to coach the pet parents effectively!Of course, with all puppy training, the pet parents are the ones who really need training. The concepts are out there on the internet and the hand outs have great level of information, but what I find the most valuable was the situational and contextual hints that Sarah shared with us in the puppy classes specific to our puppy's situation at the time. For example, how would you help your large dog learn to interact with smaller dogs? When should you introduce a small break for safe play? How do you know when your dog is having a good time vs feeling uncomfortable in play? All of these situations may require a bit more personalized suggestions for your dog's unique physical and psychological characteristics, and that's where Sarah's help made all the difference.I would 100% recommend the puppy socialization drop-ins as well! It is a great service to the community to create this safe space for puppies to learn social skills while they are interacting with like-minded puppies. We are very thankful to Sarah and Megan for this. Our Hudson came out of these as a dog who can read other dog's body language well, and we have seen shy dogs transform and become more confident just within 2 sessions!Thank you Sarah for running When Hounds Fly in Vancouver and we look forward to learning more from you in the foundations classes!

Sarah and her team are amazing! We started off with the puppy drop-in play sessions then took the foundational skills class. Sarah is an amazing instructor. She's very attentive to the struggles we're having and provides lots of helpful tips that work best for our dog. Highly recommend! Will be coming back for future classes for sure!

We are learning so much from the Foundation Skills Program. Our puppy Gabby has come so far, and the classes have given us the understanding to apply basic principals to other areas of puppy training.Sarah is so knowledgeable, and when modules we were looking for were either fully booked or on a day we couldn't make, Sarah was really accommodating and quickly added two new time slots to her calendar. I would recommend her in an instant.

Brought my pup Koko in for Puppy Drop In. For both 16 weeks & younger and 16-24 weeks. Sarah does these classes by donation too! (Which is amazing) Good way for puppies to socialize safely while waiting for all their shots. Sarah does supervise while the dogs play and gives tips on playing cues. She also keeps an eye out if a dog needs a break or reset. Recommended everyone with a new pup to definitely check out. She also has training classes too :)

Really love Sarah’s puppy socials and her puppy start right classes for my new second dog. I always learn something new and useful (even though I already have an older dog), and she’s always available to answer questions. When I was doing research on puppy classes, I was looking for classes that was more than just tricks and obedience training. I like the in depth discussions about why things happen with our dogs and how to approach different scenarios and it’s really helped me understand our dogs better.