A Better Dog Trainer

Jul 2019

We adopted a doberman mix and it was clear on day 2 that this was not going to be an easy dog. He was very willful, energetic and had some very unpredictable aggression issues - as in I could not walk him without him lunging and even, to my horror, nipping people on several occasions. My dog was also determined to rip my shoulder out of it's socket. Now we walk without incident and pulling. There have been other bumps along the way, but John always handles them in a very calm and compassionate manner. My dog, who is not overly affectionate, loves to see John: his tail always thumps upon John's arrival.

Nov 2015

We have a wonderful Lab mix that we adopted at 2 y/o. She was/is great with people, gentle with kids and generally pretty good... Except we could not control her around animals (esp. deer, cats and squirrels all around where we live) and if food was present all bets were off--she is the epitome of chow hound. So, our first instinct was to do treat training, but we came to find out that she would respond wonderfully, as long as we had the treats, but when we ran out, she was back to the same old tricks. We wanted John to train her out of those behaviors, however--as he told us and we soon came to learn--he doesn't really train the dog as much as the people. The focus of...read full review

Sep 2015

John Vinton is amazing! Recently we adopted a two year old German Shepherd mix named Barney. He was found on the side of a road after being hit by a car with a broken hip. Barney was brought to a high-kill shelter and was going to be put down until The Milo Foundation in Berkeley rescued him and raised money for his surgery. He was an automatic great match for our older dog, Fred, so we adopted him. Unfortunately, like a lot of rescues, Barney had some serious aggression issues. We were desperate to get help. We spoke to a dozen trainers and weren't impressed with their quoting prices and monotone and money focused answers. And then we randomly found John Vinton. He was...read full review