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 What
Our
Clients Say
 Meet Juna
Juna was a rescue dog who had been found with a litter
of puppies on a street somewhere in New Jersey. We think
she is about 2 years old. We adopted her several weeks
before moving to Massachusetts. Because we never had a dog
before and we were really not aware of how much she
needed. We had been told that Juna had been abused, and so
I had my own feelings about her, which included an
unwillingness to discipline, a reluctance to be "alpha", a
fear of frightening her.
When we first brought Juna to It's PAWSible! Dog
Training Center, we'd had her for three months and she was
almost out of control. She needed constant rawhides or
chew toys, or she would destroy things. She barked at
everyone and everything, except us. She was aggressive,
even hostile; I was afraid that she was going to bite
Beth. I suspected from the few months that she'd lived
with us that she was really more fearful than anything
else, but she seemed really fierce. I desperately wanted
to find the proud little creature inside this half-wild
dog, and I was certain that I had more to learn than she
did.
Beth Ostrowski-Parks taught me how to behave with my
dog. She helped me see that my feelings about Juna's
difficult past were keeping us both from moving forward.
She taught me to become comfortable with being in charge
of Juna rather than her being in charge of herself and us,
by giving me the tools to be the leader of the pack. Beth
taught us how, with ways that were direct yet required no
physical force.
Working with Juna day after day, seeing the sparkle in
her eyes, the pride with which she began to carry herself,
propelled me forward in continuing training. I could
really began to understand where Beth's ideas of building
her confidence were really helping her. I would come home
from our walks and talk about what she'd accomplished that
day, and Juna would watch me closely, listening, hearing
herself being praised. She seemed to walk taller with each
passing week.
When we would go to a
private lesson, she was a model student. She loved the
training, loved the attention and I think she loved
showing me how much she could really learn. There
certainly were days when I was pushing myself out the door
to walk her. But we both stuck it out, and I get choked up
just looking at her sometimes, marveling at how far she's
come.
Juna recently traveled with us to New York City to
visit a family member in the hospital. She was in our car
for eleven hours (with breaks and water and air) but she
didn't chew anything. She stayed with friends while we
were at the hospital, she allowed them to walk her, to
bring her to visit some children, she even met another
dog, all without us being there!
Everyone who has known Juna for the eight months she's
lived with us is amazed at her transformation. I forget
how bad it really was, and people remind me; it really
warms my heart to realize how far she's come, how proud I
am of her.
I am so grateful to Juna, for showing me her fine
spirit and her sweetness. I'm also grateful to Beth
Ostrowski-Parks who helped me craft a relationship with a
dog that has changed my life. I'm grateful that I could
learn what Beth offered, and use the skills she showed me,
so that I could truly see . . . no matter what the
situation, no matter what dog . . . if you want them to
the be best dog they can be . . .It's PAWSible!
Julie S.,
Easthampton, MA
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