I needed dog training after having my dog for just a few months and not knowing how to teach him tricks I decided to sign up for the petco positive dog training. They have different packages and didn't know which one to get. The one I picked ended up being $350. Pretty high price tag but I figured if I could get some good training out of it it would be worth it.
The trainer I used was keoni who seemed a bit young and only had a year's experience doing this so I was a little skeptical how good he would be at it. But he did impress me in the long run. My dog learned sit, stay, down, come here (but they use the command line of "touch" for this one), and go to your bed (the command is "place"). My dog seemed to automatically recognize that keoni was the alpha and did what he said. The real challenge was getting my dog to do what I said. That's where keoni really helped me out. Honestly he was more of training me how to interact with my dog so that my dog would do what I said. Keoni taught me some other important things like don't chase after your dog when he runs off. That was actually a life saving tip he told me. He said it was important that your dog comes when called and that's what he taught my dog to do.
A month or two after completing the dog training I was at my sister's house and we had left toto at the house while I went to go get something out of the car. When I went to go open the front door toto dashed out the door. He was in an unfamiliar place and I thought for sure I was screwd. My pregnant sister screams when she realizes that toto took off and drops her stuff she is holding and falls to the ground. We both were in panic mode. Then I remembered what keoni taught me...never chase after your dog. So I then I put into play what I had learned. Used the command "touch" and he came back!! He was just a foot away from a busy street. It really could have been a complete nightmare situation but because of this training it has a happy ending. my sister ended up getting a bruise on her hand but everything was ok with the baby....thank god!
After the training course was completed they give you a form to send off to the akc and you have to send them $10 to recieve your star puppy metal. So I did that too.
Toto and I plan on going back to get his akc good canine citizenship test done. Dogs have to be over a year old for this certification. Since toto just had his birthday recently we will be doing that soon.
Also petco on Saturdays offers a free puppy playtime hour where you can bring puppies under a year old to go and socialize with other puppies. It's held in the same area they do the dog training (located in the middle of the store in a sectioned off area). Dogs of all sizes can go and some of the puppies are actually quite large and it's not a very big area for all those puppies. My dog didn't seem to like puppy playtime too well but all the other dogs seemed to be having a blast. I guess toto is just spoiled by the dog park we go to everyday. It would have been a lot better if the puppy playtime had a larger space area though.
One time I thought I would be thrifty and thought my dogs nails were getting too long so I got some dog nail cutters and trimmed my dogs nails myself. Well turns out I didn't know what I was doing cause I cut his nail too short. Toto starts bleeding and I freak out. Called my sister and she said to go to the nearest pet store and that they would know what to do. There is this stuff you can buy that you put on the nail to stop the bleeding(looks like cornmeal).
So that's what I did. I rushed to petco and the employees there were awesome! I ended up talking to one of the groomers who actually gave me some of the stuff to make his toenail stop bleeding and she gave me a little bit to take with me in case it started bleeding again. I wanted to get his nails trimmed since I thought they still needed trimming and she looked at them and said they didn't need to be trimmed at all. that they were actually at a good length. I offered to pay for the stuff she gave me to stop the bleeding but she said there was no need for that. Super cool and amazingly awesome!!! Needless to say I've never tried to trim his nails myself ever again. But 5 stars for petco and the awesome staff!