My Experience with Country View Canines
By Wendi Steinberg
The staff at Country View Canines has been a blessing to me and my dog Baxter. Baxter is currently 2 ½ years old and has been very energetic and somewhat of a training challenge. The first year of his life I attempted to “do it on my own” with little to no results. In March of 2010 I reached out to Country View Veterinary Service and they introduced me to Amy Robinson and that is when I began to finally learn that, though Baxter needed refining, the real training started with me….and I had a ton to learn. Initially, I needed home lessons just to get to Baxter to heel correctly and for me to be able to walk him for exercise. Since he was over 100 pounds this was quite a feat. Later, Amy invited me to a puppy class stressing the importance of socializing Baxter with other dogs and proper behavior in groups of strangers. I began to move on to an intermediate class, a couple of rally classes, and the past six months have been doing private lessons to train Baxter to become a therapy dog.
One result of a lack of exercise during Baxter’s first year of life was that he ended up quite overweight. In fall of 2011 he started a diet prompted by The Biggest Loser Contest at Country View. As of today he has gone from 115 to 85 pounds. A huge part of this weight loss was Baxter’s “workout plan”: DOGGY DAYCARE! This is one of the most awesome services provided by Country View and dogs love it. I drop him off at 7:30 in the morning and he can run for ten hours or more. Having this at hand up to three times per week has been so great because it is very hard to get a dog the amount of exercise and running they really need regardless of how much time is spent out in the neighborhood. We have been very happy with the progress made and the friendships established with Amy, Karla, and Sarah at Country View Canines at Country View Veterinary Service.
