Bark Busters UK Reviews 

We had issues with jumping up, seeking attention, we were at our lowest ebb and felt rehoming was our only option. Liz made a difference from day 1. Murphy was a different dog. It still is a work in progress but I am certain that we will have a great relationship with our dog going forward.

Gavin approached my home in a calm , friendly and professional manner. Very easy to talk to and gave great advice , modelled scenarios and talked me through them . I already feel more confident, can’t wait to put the training into practice!
Amazing first session , great hand outs and websites to look at.
Thanks for your time, patience and expertise !
Much appreciated

Kirsty visited my home to help sort out my 5 year cockapoo, his aggressive behaviour started when he was 12 months old and has progressively got worse to the extent where it was try something else (Kirsty at Barkbusters) or put him to sleep. We didn’t want to give up on him although he had bitten us numerous times where medical treatment was needed. Kirsty is one amazing woman, who understands the minds and behaviour of dogs, within an hour I had a dog that was listening to me, no aggression and it was the first time I felt in control. It’s very early days but Kirsty has given us the tools, knowledge and support to help our dog Buddy. We know his training will be ongoing for the rest of his life and knowing that we have the support off Kirsty for the next 12 months is so reassuring but it will be down to us to keep Buddy on track. Kirsty has given us hope for which we are truly grateful. I must also add I was so anxious and nervous myself and she helped me through the training too. Thank you Kirsty love Buddy, Julie & Alex

Great advice, almost instant results with behaviour guidance.

Abi was exalt in what she said

Results from the very first encounter with Abi.
We are looking forward to working alongside Abi and our puppy for great results.

Kirsty s patience and kindness .

Sharon (trainer) very professional, confident and good clear communication to both us and Betsy.
The results are great from the training- thanks again Sharon.

I am a new puppy owner and was clear on the 3 areas I would like training help with. However I had no idea that the Bark Busters approach is to growl at your puppy with a deep throated bahhh to create a pack leader/ dominance approach with the puppy. The trainer growled at my puppy and used their body to control and take authority over her and also told me she cannot go on the furniture and needs to wear her lead all day to help pull her off.

If I had know this was the training approach I would never have booked it but it is not clear on the website, nor was this mentioned during initial phone calls. I felt pressured when I tried to delay my appointment and of course now can see that once you have the appointment booked, the wording is cleverly written and the 14 days cooling off period is before the actual training session. It also says that you pay for the session and the years support is free so I had no chance of getting my money back.

The dominance/ pack leader / growling approach is not approved by the Kennel Club and many trainers have told me it is considered outdated. I can see how it may work for rescue dogs or very large dominant breeds but if you’ve adopted a rewards based, positive reinforcement training strategy with your own puppy, this may not be the right thing. Check it before paying the £495 as despite speaking to 3 different aspects of the business, it’s near impossible to get anywhere due to the clever set up.

Great advice today and lots of ideas to build on.

I can't believe they have such a good reviews seems I was just very unlucky. My experience with them was just appalling the person used alpha method on my terrified dog, didnt spend any time on getting to know him, before she started growling at him for wanting to go into our garden before her. Then she proceeded to take my dog for a walk around the block when he is absolutely in panic, panting, shaking and trying to hide, she just pulled him super hard making him walk around. This made him even more fearful of looking even at the harness. Those overflooding methods of "he will get used to" and "he needs to understand you are the boss" are very old and scientifically proven useless and definitely not beneficial creating even more issues. Terrible experience I would not recommend, find someone who is kind, respectful and gives your dog the time they need to improve , if that means expending more money in sessions. Nothing gets fixed in a few sessions and sometimes not even a year.

We contacted Bark Busters in desperation; we were 4 days in after bringing Connie, a lively rescue dog home that had zero house or people manners. Abi was amazing from the moment she arrived, she sat with us, separate to Connie and listened to our concerns. Abi talked us through how Connie would be feeling and why she was acting the way she was, it all made so much sense. Abi did some practical training with us and Connie, and it was amazing to see Connie following instructions so quickly. It has been 3 weeks since we met with Abi and the difference in Connie is remarkable. Abi is great, 100% recommend.

I was surprised at how my 6 month old pup smudge listened to trainer Alex Fraser, I enjoyed the training session felt like a really proud dog mum. Alex sent me over lots of training information in which I’ve been consistent with each day since and smudge is communicating well looking forward to continuing smudges training with Alex thank you Kelly

We have been with Bark Busters for a year now, and we opted for a gold package so that we were covered for the lifetime of our dog's life. We have had a mix of phone calls, emails and home visits to support our bark busters journey; all of which have been really invaluable with Gavin who is the trainer for our area (Doncaster).
Milo, our dog, is incredibly nervous and we wanted to work on pulling on the lead, not wanting to get in the car and barking excessively at guests at the house. In less than a year he was already barking less, reduced massively, and now we are able to walk him much easier than we ever thought possible! Gavin provided us with a training lead and a harness, and I can't even say how great the harness seems to be already for stopping the pulling!
We recognise as owners, that we can be inconsistent with our training and this means we could have had more of an impact on Milo than we currently have, but we are still really happy with the progress. You get out of training what you put into it, and every lesson is really valuable to us.
Thanks so much to Gavin, he honestly is so personable and friendly it doesn't feel like you're being taught, it's like a chat with a friend!

Understanding how and why my puppy behaves as he does was really great. Advice on feeding and treats so worth while

Sharon was very friendly and knowledgeable. She showed me a few tricks to help with my puppy problems and started me off in a training course to guide me and the puppy!

First time Gina explained how we were going to get started in a nice and friendly manner you could see after 10 minutes my dog was taken notice of Gina and my dog poppy started to take notice off the commands 👍enjoyed the introduction I would recommend any time to anyone

Our two Dobermans Buddy age 4 and Bea age 8 months were booked in for visit from dog trainer Kirsty from Bark Busters, Buddy’s issues were all lead related, we just could get him out the door without being dragged on to drive and up the road and Bea was beginning to follow suit..
Having had a long discussion about Buddy with Kirsty she suggested some exercises to be carried out which was a game changer instantly, which was amazing, same exercises for Bea..
So today is our second day with the training suggested and getting the dogs outside has been successful, so if you see a couple walking two Dobermans around bacons end Solihull with silly grins on their faces, that will be us..
Many Thanks to Kirsty from Barks Busters look forward to more training.. 10 out of 10 from us would highly recommend..

Had gread pleasure meeting Ssrah for the first time today. We were anxious as had never had a trainer with our first dog but soon learned the value.

Sarah is so pleasant and eager to help owners in such a professional manor. I look forward to working with her over the next year helping us understand our new puppy Golden Retriever Lando, he is already a hanful and the first thing we took from BarkBusters was care, attention and devotion to their work.

Kirsty is very helpful and listens to you. Very polite and chatty. Gave lots of information and explained things well. Looking forward to next training session.