Mitch H.
1/5
I feel cheated by someone who traumatized my best friend.
I didn't want to write this review initially and we really weighed our options, including filing a lawsuit against Breanne Charity. After much thought I've decided to go ahead and at least tell my story to hopefully inform other potential clients of who you're dealing with when you choose to hire Becoming Maverick for your dog's behavioral training.
I have to give Breanne credit for her excellent customer service skills and how accommodating she was with my wife initially. Henry was just a young pup and my wife was new to driving so the commute out to Cochrane for day training wasn't practical. Breanne not only went above and beyond to adjust the initial board and train program to a day training program and eventually she even would make the drive out to Calgary to pick him up and drop him off. I really thought quite highly of her for this and at the time I really appreciated how accommodating she was. She was even able to offer to conveniently purchase the training equipment for us and add it to our bill. She suggested a good reading list of books that really helped me to understand the process and how to better interact with dogs in general. This has helped us to help Henry behave better and it's also helped me to interact with strange dogs better in my daily life. I feel like I do have to give a big thanks for that.
We were very glad we went with a day training program instead of board and train. Henry's behavior immediately shifted from a happy, excited to see you, tail wagging, jumpy dog. To a reserved, fearful dog who would often hide in his kennel and not even greet me at the door when I got home anymore. He was more disciplined right away, but he wasn't the same and he didn't seem happy. I felt bad for betraying his trust and we immediately pulled him out of the program after just a single day. It was too much. Despite having read the books beforehand I just couldn't justify following through with any psychological procedure that would damage the personality of my young best friend to this degree.
Henry may have been a rare case of a dog that just shouldn't have had such strict training, but Breanne added insult to injury when she refused to refund the initial deposits less costs for the day of training. Instead she chose to only refund a portion and to keep $1 176.25 for a single day of dog training. Siting that all training programs are non refundable, but she made a special exception to refund the balance for days not trained so we could find training elsewhere.
I understand that when you're starting out in business it can be hard to find customers and get paid but I don't believe this is a good way to build your name and I would implore Breanne to refund the portion of the money that did not go directly to training. We had originally agreed to a $183.75/day price and I would fully expect to pay for her time and kilometers driven in accommodating us, but $1 176.25 for a single day after seeing such a scary behavior change is unacceptable by any standard of fairness.
Henry has since returned to his normal state now. After some patience and understanding he's learned to be more relaxed on walks and he no longer has issues jumping on people like he did as a younger puppy. I do sincerely worry what might have happened to him if we followed through on the board and train or even just on day training. Initially I thought that Breanne Charity was someone I could trust. Her credentials were good, her book suggestions displayed a passion for her work and she only had good reviews online at the time.
It's hard to trust someone else to take care of your loved ones. We did the research and tried our best to pick someone great but now we just feel ripped off by someone who we've effectively paid $1 176.25 for a few good book recommendations to start our journey and more proof for the saying "If you want something done right, do it yourself."
Edit:Payments and refunds totaled $1 837.50 less the refund of -$661.25 issued December 5th 2023: $1 176.25
