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Len and Masako Walsh and Santo

We took a pit bull into our house a year and a half ago who was labeled as "dangerous" by the dog pound --so much so that euthanasia was ordered, and they were very reluctant to release him, even to a rescue agency.

He was pretty good with people in most situations but an out-of-control and deadly fighter with other dogs. After some wrangling they did release him, and we were willing to take him mainly because a volunteer dog walker we knew had walked him several times, felt that he had a good heart, and was so insistent this dog deserved to be saved that we agreed to give him a try.

We named him Santo. To put it simply, we would not have been able to keep Santo if it were not for Kathy. He decompressed and gained weight (pure muscle) for several months after we took him from the pound, and what started out as depression and a beaten down attitude turned into more confidence and agressiveness, making him more and more difficult to manage. We couldn't trust him around any other dog, and I wasn't real confident about him with people either.

Recently, we celebrated because we were able to bring Santo to Point Isabel on a day when it was teaming with other dogs, where he walked calmly by my side to meet a group of some twenty people and their dogs. This was one of the sessions Kathy holds at the park from time to time, free of charge, where she gathers together her students and their dogs for group training.

Santo acquitted himself flawlessly. He heeled close to me as we walked through and around dogs of all sizes and shapes. We then joined the group, where he had to hang out, lie down, and roll on his side among other things--within biting distance of many, many other dogs who all have had their own issues of controllability. He let perfect strangers take him by the leash, walk him, and put him through the paces. The whole experience seemed so natural and uneventful, but if someone had predicted that scenario to me three months earlier I simply wouldn't have believed it.

There is no way I can adequately express what a difference Kathy's training has made. I will say that I was teetering on the brink of giving up on Santo because I couldn't take the constant worrying about the consequences of not keeping him strictly under control at all times. He is a powerful dog and it seemed I was always just one little slip-up away from disaster with him.

Well, Santo does have a good heart, and he still needs more training, but the progress we have made over the last three months when we started with her is just plain magical-there is no other way to describe it. We have mainstreamed him with most of our other dogs, and he meets most new dogs he encounters now without a problem. There are still some encounters that need to be avoided or "managed," but we've learned how to do that without having to stress out over it. We're not finished with his training, but the light at the end of the tunnel is clearly within reach.

One of the great skills Kathy can teach is how to read a dog's signals so that you can anticipate and guide his behavior. It turns out we give off quite a few signals ourselves, and she will have you looking just as hard at your side of the communication equation too.

Working with Kathy is a once in a lifetime experience. She puts her heart and soul into what she does, and it shows in the results. You will learn about your dog and yourself, and it may well change the way you think about a lot of things.

Len and Masako Walsh