Pico the Chihuahua
"My wife's chihuahua, Pico, was one of the toughest little dogs I had ever seen. Only my wife could get near him. He has bitten me and several family members, no one could even sit on the couch if he was there. It was really bad until I looked up a couple of trainers. After talking to Matt from Alert, I decided to have him come to our home and evaluate Pico. Matt determined the best way to get Pico under control was for him to take him for two weeks for board training then have the follow up lessons at our home. When he came home we could see a different dog, no more growling or nipping and we all sit on the couch together now. Thank you Matt."
Miss Coco Beanz the chocolate lab
"We brought our 1 year old chocolate lab "Miss Coco Beanz" to Matt for desperate help. Our 10 year old daughter Mattie is in Dock Dog Competitions with Coco and struggled to get her to obey on the dock. Coco's behavior was just as bad at home. She was constantly running away, ignoring our calls to come and being generally unruly in our home. Her bad manners ranged from jumping on the counter to growling at our daughter and not letting her get in bed at night. We were extremely frustrated! We had been to another trainer that uses positive reinforcement. We saw minuscule improvements but were still left with an unruly dog that constantly ran away and ignored us. We needed something more. Thankfully we found Matt! In only 3 lessons with Matt, Coco has become a very well behaved member of our family. She comes when she's called, goes to her "place" when told and is a pleasure to be around. Now with a simple command Coco obeys whatever we ask of her and stops any unwanted behavior immediately. We are beyond thrilled with the results from Matts training. We highly recommend Matt for whatever issue you may be having."
Adopting a Collie Mix
"When we decided to get a dog we thought about adopting, so we went to our animal shelter and saw a cute little 11 week old collie mix. We were given instructions on what would be needed when we got the puppy home. We purchased a crate as recommended, leash and collar and began house/crate training. We followed all the instructions from the shelter but every time we would walk him outside to do his business he would not go. We would put him in his crate and within 5 minutes he would mess the crate, we were at our wits end. I called back the shelter and told them we were going to bring back the pup. We had him for almost a month at this point and the person at the shelter told me to give him one more chance and gave me the number of Alert Canine Training Solutions. Matt came over and we explained our situation. He gave us several tips on how to have the puppy relieve himself outside . After 2 lessons we now had a dog that was on schedule and we had no plans to get rid of the new addition to our family. We signed up for 5 additional lessons and are very pleased with the results."
A new philosophy
"As a professional dog trainer I thought I had a clear understanding on training and reading dogs. Several years ago I had the opportunity to meet Matt Carraturo at a dog sporting event and watched him work his dog . I was intrigued and wanted to see more. After exchanging phone numbers I was able to attend several training sessions. I watched as he explained to several students how to start obedience on a young dog . He broke down all the exercises in a way that made it very clear for the dog and handler to understand. I now keep an open mind to learning new ideas and methods of training and thanks to Matt I now have a bunch of new training techniques and a better philosophy of the importance of the different methods."
Samson the Rottweiler
"We met Matt in 1984 when we got our Rottweiler pup, Samson. This was our first dog. At first we thought we would be able to train him ourselves but that was not the case. At 6 months old he became a handful . We contacted Alert dog training for advise. After his evaluation of Samson he suggested we do in home lessons. Both my wife and I participated in the training. It did not take long before he was healing on leash and obeying our commands, now we were walking him instead of him walking us. Matt has since trained several of our dogs. He is a master at his craft."
