.png)
Testimonials
Tara
Earlier this year, my family adopted Tara, a five-year-old hound from a local rescue. Due to the progress we have made with Tim, we were able to cancel our intake appointment with a behaviorist to address our new dog’s behavioral concerns. She is now a much happier, more confident companion! The improvement is absolutely incredible.
Sam and Ellen Simonoff
Bean
We hired Tim Bliss in August 2022 to work with Bean, our newly adopted Yorkshire terrier mix. Bean is a 3-year-old (we think) rescue who spent a lot of time in a shelter with much bigger dogs before becoming a part of our family. We soon discovered he was very anxious and had a hard time being alone. He would bark incessantly at noises from outside, soil his crate every time we put him in, lunge and bark at other dogs and people, and anxiously follow us around the house. We knew we had to help him feel more comfortable in his new home and learn how to accept the outside world with confidence.
Tim Bliss came to our rescue! When I first talked to Tim on the phone, I realized he was not only asking questions about our dog, but also trying to understand us as people and decipher how we responded to Bean. During our first session, Tim entered our home and immediately gave Bean his full attention, letting him greet him, all the while speaking in kind, gentle tones. Bean was immediately comfortable with him, and so were we. Tim quickly realized that as anxious first-time dog owners, we needed just as much training and reassurance as Bean did.
We are now in our 10th week of training, and Tim’s gentle, kind, and attentive dog training has had wonderful results. Bean no longer has accidents in the house, has decreased his barking by 80%, and now moves freely from floor to floor, confidently exploring his home. We highly recommend Tim. He will take care of your pet, gently diagnose their needs, and patiently change behaviors (in both you and your pet) with kindness and grace!
Evgenia Goodrick (owner of Bean)
Shadow
In the spring we lost our precious Black Lab Indi. He gave us 13 years of pure joy – was certified to visit children and the elderly in hospitals and was a neighborhood favorite of the kids and their parents. He was such an important part of our lives that we waited a while before we got another – two days!
On Memorial Day we brought home an amazing, tiny, black lab puppy, and rejoiced as he sped around the yard and snuggled up with the family and the neighbors. Within a month he had doubled in size and in energy, and by two months with us had tripled in both. We knew we would need help training him and turned to trainer recommended to us – Tim Bliss. Finding Tim and getting his training help has been a joy and a godsend! We love his affirmative rather than punitive style of training, his consistency, and his insights! Tim definitely speaks “dog!”
To be fair, Tim’s hardest students are myself and my husband, and under his patient guidance we are learning how to set and enforce loving but reasonable boundaries with our Shadow – now 80 pounds of pure muscle and energy. I don’t know what we would do without Tim’s coaching.
One of the very best aspects of his technique is that he comes to our home once a week so that Shadow is being trained in the real environment he lives in – and Tim can see for himself what lessons are needed. We highly recommend Tim – “Professor Tim” – for your new puppy or to strengthen the good behaviors of your older dog!
Elissa Matulis Myers
(1)703 626 9087
Lucky and Skimpy
Thank you for the excellent dog training program you provided to Lucky and Skimpy. On your first visit, Lucky and Skimpy barked and growled at you because you were a visitor in our home; they would not come to you. Surprisingly, during the last three training sessions, Lucky and Skimpy greeted you with wagging tags and did not bark or growl at you.
As you know, taking Lucky and Skimpy out for walks and potty breaks was very challenging and quite embarrassing because they barked at every person and dog. Lucky and Skimpy have improved drastically. Very few barks, if any, during our walks, and our walks are more enjoyable for me. I have learned more from you than I ever imagined was possible. Now, I can enjoy our walks.
By the way, thanks for teaching me the commands to come, sit, stay, etc. Most of the time, they obey my commands without receiving a treat. Your positive reinforcement dog training techniques were excellent. Although you were the fourth dog trainer for Lucky and Skimpy, you are the only dog trainer that Lucky and Skimpy improved.
Thank you for your patience, positive attitude, words of encouragement, tips you provided me, and most of all, the love you had for Lucky and Skimpy, my babies. Thanks for being non-judgmental when I would get frustrated with Lucky and Skimpy. You coached me on how to speak to them and be confident when we are on our walks because Lucky and Skimpy are looking to me to be calm. I appreciated how flexible you were, so I took advantage of all the time training. Thank you for finding a local doggie park and riding with me to the doggie park.
Please provide my contact information if any of your future clients want to contact me for a reference. Tim, on a scale of 1 - 10, of you as a dog trainer, you are a 10+. I definitely will contact you in the future if Lucky and Skimpy need additional training lessons.
Diane Rector
571.598.2880
Finn
I began working with Tim to help address highly reactive behavior in my adult rescue dog Finn. While lovely with people, Finn had likely been used as a bait dog early in life and was extremely reactive when confronted with other dogs. A previous trainer had encouraged the use of a prong collar, which had only limited success and resulted in Finn becoming fearful of the trainer. As luck would have it, I ran into Tim at a local park and decided to make a change – a change that was definitely for the better.
Tim immediately recommended switching away from the prong collar to a harness and began an “all positive” training regime. The results have been nothing short of fabulous. Finn loves his training sessions and literally jumps for joy when he hears we are visiting Tim. With Tim’s help, the bond of trust between Finn and his owners has grown dramatically. We have made great progress with loose leash walking and commands that make Finn much easier to handle even in stressful situations. Both dog and owners are much more confident and our walks more joyful. Tim is flexible and very easy to work with. He is also smart, kind, and very patent with both his canine and human students. You can’t go wrong working with Tim.
Breck Blalock
Lucy
We highly recommend Tim as a dog trainer! With his expert guidance, our rowdy Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy, Lucy, has transformed into a well-behaved companion. Thanks to Tim, Lucy now has great recall, doesn't jump on strangers, and walks beautifully on a leash. Lucy absolutely loved her time with Tim and was so excited whenever she got to see him. Tim's dedication and effective training techniques made all the difference for us. If you're looking for a skilled and caring trainer, Tim is the one to trust. Thank you, Tim, for all you've done for Lucy and our family!
Jaime & Josh
