To whom it may concern:
My wife, my dog and I have gone through a very unpleasant experience with a dog trainer that we hired.
The trainer involved is Doug Morrison from Doug Morrison K-9 Development. His phone numbers are (705) 277-9959 or (866) 848-9924. His E-mail address is [email protected] and his website is www.dougmorrisonk-9development.com. Although there is no address on his business card, Mr. Morrison advised us that he now resides in Port Perry, Ontario. His spouse apparently raises horses. He also mentioned that he banked in Peterborough.
According to his website, this man appears to be a qualified and caring trainer who trains with the animal's best interest at heart. He supposedly has many years of experience. What we found was that he is a mean spirited man who tries to break the spirit of the animal and its owners. This is how he accomplishes his training goals. It also quickly became obvious that, although he knew that we had a northern breed pup, he has no respect for any of the northern breeds. After he had his money, he even went so far as to question us about why anyone would ever want a one of these pups. He went on to say that our pup was ugly. My wife and Mr. Morrison's trainee disagreed and said that our pup was beautiful.
This whole episode began with a search of the Internet for a good dog trainer in this area for our 11-month-old pup. Our pup had taken private puppy training last year, but we did not want to return to the same trainer. Mostly, we wanted a little diversity in the training process. We certainly got that!
After leaving a couple of messages for Mr. Morrison, he returned my call and an appointment was set up for us to all meet at our home (Saturday, April 14, 2007). We should have clued in when Mr. Morrison was late.
During our meeting, Mr. Morrison charmed us and although a little gruff, he appeared to be the kind of caring trainer that we wanted. At least, this is what he conveyed to us. In fact, when he and our pup first met, he was immediately able to get him to sit, lay down and stay, with no sign of cruelty. We sat there with our mouths open, not believing our eyes. The deal was done and we foolishly signed a contract with this man who we now feel misrepresented himself. We also handed him a cheque for $460.00 (dated April 14, 2007). The cheque was cashed on April 17, 2007.
Foolishly, we agreed to a contract that says that we would do whatever the trainer said we must do. Never, did we even consider the possible harshness of this man's ways. We hired what we thought was a caring man and got a monster for our money.
Also during this initial visit, Mr. Morrison talked about using a prong collar and I questioned its use because I knew what they look like. My wife had never seen one. He assured me that he would prove to me that it was less harmful to the dog than a choke collar. He told me to go on the web and I would see that there are many studies stating this. I did find such studies.
Our first lesson was on April 16, 2007 and a prong collar was used, but it was used in what we considered to be a very humane manner. We love our pup and never want to see him harmed. Our little guy was quickly walking like a little gentleman. He looked happy and my wife was not being tugged off of her feet. We were impressed. It was a good session. Mr. Morrison had showed up for this lesson with Nicholas, a young gentleman from Windsor Ontario who was learning to be a dog trainer (another one of Mr. Morrison's services). Nicholas is now a Windsor, Ontario franchise holder of Morrison's.
The next scheduled lesson was on April 23, 2007. During this lesson, I let down both my wife and our dog. I let my wife down because I sat there and watched this guy badger her to tears because she could not bring herself to pulling our pup's leash with a hard TWO-HAND pull. I let our pup down by sitting there after seeing this asshole tug on his leash until he yelped (while wearing the prong collar). Even when he was trying to be really good and lying down, Mr. Morrison kicked him (while wearing shoes) twice in the nose because he crept closer to Morrison and submissively licked Mr. Morrison's shoe. Our pup was kicked hard enough to make his little head snap back. He had no idea why he was being disciplined (if you can call it that). Nicholas also witnessed these incidents, but I do not know if he would verify my statements. He has money in his training as well.
Our pup was so traumatized by this episode that he even cowered away from my brother and also from another gentleman he meets on his walk. When meeting these friends, he laid down with his ears back, his tail between his legs, and he shook. He is a dog who loves everybody and this bastard hurt him. Both of these people just love our pup and would never hurt him. I think that we have him over that fear now. At least, I hope so.
April 30, 2007, was to be our third lesson. Mr. Morrison showed up with a different person he was training. This person was Donna from Manitoba. He advised us that Nicholas was sick that day. I wonder if that was true because it was very clear that he did not like some of what Nicholas said the week before. Morrison indicated almost immediately that he knew something was up. He stated to my wife "You want to quit don't you? ". Maybe the fact that our dog was kept outside and away from him was a strong hint.
As soon as I brought up the kicking episode, Mr. Morrison first denied it and then started to rant that nobody can accuse him of kicking or hurting a dog. He headed for the door, but came back briefly when he saw that my brother had just come to the door. I quickly got through with my brother and we again tried to talk to Mr. Morrison about our concerns. He was having none of it. I questioned him about a refund and he adamantly stated that we signed a contract stating that the training would be over if we didn't do exactly what he told us. He said that we would not get any money back. He said to call him when we wanted to continue the training. Why would we want to continue anything with this kind of individual?
Had he not misrepresented himself to us, we would have never signed a contract with such an evil trainer.
Now outside, I asked him to come back inside and discuss our concerns like a man. He walked away from me and went to his truck (a rolling billboard). As he was entering his vehicle and closing the door, he got brave and he told me to stick it up my ass.
We may have lost our money, but people need to know about this individual. This is so, for their good and for the good of their furry family members. I don't want to involve him in our fight, but I now know of another person who had used Mr. Morrison for a trainer. His dog hated Doug Morrison and would cower in a corner when Morrison showed up (a German Shepherd). Mr. Morrison just stopped showing up for their lessons. This must be a scam that this guy runs. He comes across as a nice guy, he gets your money and when you won't abuse your pet, he dumps you. For our $460.00, we got one lesson, one cruelty session and one refusal to discuss. That amounts to about two and a quarter hours at best or $204.44 per hour. Someone needs to investigate this guy.
Doug Morrison told us that a dog should be trained to lay down wherever we tell him and unless he has diarrhoea, he should not get up to eat, drink or relieve himself unless we tell him to. He wanted us to stop letting our pup sleep with us and to crate him at night. This point was argued with Doug, and unknown to him, we never followed through. We were supposed to feed our growing pup once a day and never put him out at night. Again, we never did this. Why would we even want a dog like that? As frustrating as our pup can be at times, we love his personality. If I wanted Doug's kind of dog, I would get one made out of concrete.
Doug Morrison had us take our pup off of puppy food (Hill's Science Diet Puppy Original) and go on adult food (Hills Science Diet Adult). Because our pup was 11 months old and we did do this. Not without checking first though.
Please note that Nick, and probably Donna, were staying with Doug because they had PAID him to teach them to be trainers. Nick should be required to explain why he had such a surprised look on his face when Doug kicked our pup (Note: He kicked our pup hard twice with the top/toe of his New Balance shoe). Nick looked shocked. Nick consistently interrupted Doug in his harangue of my wife, by playing the role of peacemaker e.g., "I know just how you feel", he said to my wife. "I felt this way too. Imagine how hard it was for me to leave my dog way down in the laundry room in his crate all night when I went upstairs to bed." (His dog had always slept with he and his wife too).
When my wife commented, "But you didn't cry? ", Nick responded, "No, but I felt like it. My wife did! " He went on to explain that, believe it or not, Doug's methods work and that he and his own dog are now closer than ever. Mr. Morrison was obviously ticked off that Nick told us those things. Even when the two of them were leaving, Nick said as an aside, "You think you've got it bad - I've got to go home with him! ". I also wonder if Nick forgets Doug yanking our pup's leash/prong collar so hard that the little guy yelped?
After being kicked, our pup would do nothing for Mr. Morrison. That is when he gave our pup back to my wife and spent the remainder of his time browbeating her.
T locate Nick's full name, I decided to try a search for Windsor, Ontario dog trainers and found this.
Nick Howchuk - 519-945-7468
https://www.dougmorrisonk-9development.com/windsor/index.html
We have tried to deal with the cruelty issues with the Human Society/SPCA, but Morrison will not respond to them and they have done little to find him. A complaint was also filed with the Better Business Bureau, but again, Morrison would not respond. They did, however have other complaints about him.
After the fact, a search of Morrison's credentials was done, until the Humane Society asked me and my friend to back off, and most of these credentials were not panning out.
This monster needs to be stopped!
Gwr
Peterborough, Ontario
Canada
0 comments