Pawsitive Reactions, LLC

We reached out to Debby when we experienced problems in our 3 dog home with resource guarding. She quickly understood the problem and provided tons of resources and specific exercises to help us prevent issues. Our pups have made real progress, and everyone - pups and human - are happier! We'd recommend her to anyone needing behavioral consultation.
Aug 8th, 2021

I recently rescued a Caucasian Ovcharka and the first several weeks were absolutely terrifying. While I was falling in love with my new girl, I was also actively seeking safer accommodations for her. Because rehoming is a slow, cautious process, I decided in the meantime to pursue training for her to give her her best shot. I live in Madison, WI, and was so happy to find Debby provides virtual sessions. Debby was immediately helpful and encouraging, and provided fantastic literature and advice. She helped me within one session to determine that I could safely keep my girl, and gave me tools to facilitate the best relationship I can have with her. Debby is always responsive and kind. She is a compassionate and competent trainer with a wealth of knowledge. Truly, she changed our lives here, and I can't recommend her enough!
Sep 13th, 2021

We have two energetic mini labradoodles. Our oldest was bitten twice and was highly reactive to dogs and is highly opionated. We had tried standard obedience training, had done socialization with dogs and people since puppyhood and still struggled to get him to listen. We also had issues with overexcitement with visitors, barking and jumping. We had asked obedience trainers and our vet for help with no results. People were recommending bark and shock collars to us. Or telling us, that's just poodles for you. We found Debby though a recommendation and I'm so glad we did! She comes to our house, on walks with us and we train in our normal environment so our very smart dog learns to behave in every circumstance and not just training classes. She also brings helpers and we arrange other dogs and distractions during sessions to challenge our dogs with their worst triggers. We have made huge strides in their behavior. Even during a pandemic when we had little ability to practice with visitors the boys did a huge turn around! We have a variety of options to address new behavior without using pain or fear. Debby is always available to answer questions when things pop up between sessions and a virtual session was great to address behavior thay only happens when we are home without visitors. All of our family and friends have commented on how far they have come and how impressed they are! Many had given up hope that our dogs could change.
Jun 25th, 2021

We have a little over 6 month old husky puppy. Our vet recommended we look into dog behaviorist to address a potential "fear aggression". We reached out to Debby, who responded extremely quickly, asked the necessary questions to learn about the dogs exposure to other dogs, how he responds to people, family, kids etc... Needless to say, I appreciate Debby's professionalism, she was well prepared, timely with our appointment, responded with her recap of the evaluation and even validated that our puppy does not have aggression traits. She was respectful, kind and very professional. What moved me the most which is extremely important to me - she gave the dog a chance for the dog to be himself and for her to experience him without anticipating or "labeling" aggression. Thank you for your services, I do hope we continue to stay in touch!
Jun 2nd, 2021

From my brief interaction through email with her I am shocked how she still has clients. She was unprofessional, arrogant, belittling, and shaming. I inquired about her service as my dog has trouble with some people and some dogs. I first went to a training facility that used training collars and my dog did very well, but I thought I needed more help. Was referred to here and she did nothing but shame me for taking my dog to where I did and how she couldn't work with me because I was "wedded" to the other techniques. Absolutely unprofessional and to biased in her opinions to actually want to help me and my dog. Her below response is not what happened at all. if you want the full details as to what happened I have the emails you can read. Her - "I am concerned with the amount of false information that you are believing as factual that is evidently being fed to you by SMS. If you are wedded to this horrific use (no shock collar use is ever appropriate or necessary but SMS uses methods than other shock collar "trainers" would refer to as abusive) of an unnecessary tool, then you are going to have trouble with me explaining the actual real science that is necessary to use in order to help your dog. I am well aware of how SMS uses their shock collars. As I mentioned, it's not recommended by those who understand real behavior modification techniques supported by science but it's also far more abusive than even using a shock collar simply for corrections. I have been helping dogs with modern dog behavior modification techniques for more than 20 years now and have never found it necessary to use an expensive tool over actual training and behavior modification. Your dog is now more aggressive because of the shock collar. He's not allergic to the coating. That kind of damage done to dogs by SMS "trainers" is common. You can google it for yourself." now I took my dog to SMS because he was already being aggressive. now did the collar make it worse I cannot say because I am not a professional but went searching for a second opinion. Also her - "I have serious doubts that you will hear what I am saying to you without making it very clear that the methods that you currently think that your dog enjoys, are responsible for what he is doing now." "I am not the dog behavior professional for you. It's obvious that you refuse to understand that SMS is both lying to you and harming dogs on a regular basis and calling it training. I have a strong familiarity with that business and have actually assisted in taking them to court successfully on behalf of a rescue group a violating the rescue group's training methodology. I cannot assist you with that mindset of going to bat on their behalf. Please seek out someone else who has more patience than I do." I never went to "bat" as she put it. I was just stating my experience I had with SMS which in my opinion was a positive one. My dog still needs help though and I wanted to find another way which I do not think is a bad thing. But her biased towards SMS would not allow her to see that I wanted to try another method. Last from her - "Google doesn't take kindly on fake reviews. You have never used my business so you don't get a say in such." I never claimed to use her business. As stated in the third sentence - "I inquired about her service as my dog has trouble with some people and some dogs." Now I never used her service, but I am still entitled to express what happened in the inquiry.
May 27th, 2021