Gary Maria Professional Dog Training - Walnut Creek, California

Kelsey B.

My husband and I rescued a 4 month old German Shepard mix from the animal shelter in Dublin. She was marked as a stray with no history we could be made aware of. She is the sweetest girl, but when we brought her home, we quickly learned that we needed professional help, as we were definitely in over our heads. After some research the decision to pick Gary was an easy one, and we are so happy we worked with him. With Gary’s help we were able to learn more about Luna, her behaviors, triggers, and most importantly how to manage them and provide the necessary help she needed to feel more confident. The tools he gave us were amazing and have helped her fear aggression in the outside world. He also helped us to become calm and confident pack leaders which has helped our relationship with Luna tremendously. Plus she got lots of chicken during training so she obviously LOVED Gary. If you are dealing with a puppy or dog showing any type of aggression, fear, lack of confidence, etc… I highly recommend going with Gary Maria Training! We will definitely be going back to him for any future training needs.

Christopher R.

I just finished Gary's basic obedience training with my now 7 month old Golden Retriever puppy. Gary is a true professional. I'd highly recommend him.

Before seeing Gary, I did weekly virtual training sessions through dog training mobile apps and like many other dog parents do, scoured the internet for free resources online. The vast amount of information out there (oftentimes conflicting) can make dog training somewhat overwhelming, especially to a first time dog parent. These methods worked for a while and got my puppy to a decent place obedience-wise (or so I thought), but I really wanted to take her training to the next level. Gary's system was exactly what I needed.

His training methods are unique in comparison to other cookie-cutter methods I have seen. It's all about understanding your dog, why they do the things they do, and what that means for you, the owner/handler. Throughout his course, you'll learn about dog psychology and will develop a greater understanding of how to effectively communicate with your dog.

Gary's obedience course isn't about teaching your dog useless parlor tricks; the training program is all about building a solid leader-follower relationship with your dog. You'll learn how to get your dog to trust you and look to you as the protector and pack leader. But of course, with these foundations, you can teach your dog pretty much anything.

At the end of the day, Gary teaches you, not your dog. You'll have daily homework after every session and each session builds off of the last.

In conclusion, this course was worth every penny and my relationship with my puppy couldn't be better. I plan on coming back for the advanced obedience training in a few months.

Talton C.

We just finished our basic training for our 6 month old puppy, Rufus. We started the consultation when Rufus was 4 months old when Gary was recommended by a couple of friends. Gary helped us understand, communicate, and helped build trust that has greatly improved Rufus' behavior. He gave us the confidence we needed to raise our puppy with positive reinforcement. All training methods were clearly communicated and well thought out. His years of experience were obvious and we started seeing changes in Rufus's behavior after just a few sessions. We're very pleased to have all the tools and knowledge to continue to train Rufus and any future dog we have. We are also glad that we can reach out to Gary with training updates and possibly use the advanced training program in a couple of months.

Mitchell Z.

After searching around multiple dog trainers in the Walnut Creek area, we found Gary Maria and are truly satisfied by his training techniques/experience. In a manner of 6 weeks, our 21 week year old Aussiedoodle has learned so much, from attention commands to leash training. In the beginning, our puppy's impulse control was high and all over the place. Throughout our training experience, you will see a continuous evolving progression with Gary Maria's knowledge and training. Highly recommend!!!

Mary V.

We had taken our pup Charlie to a couple other dog training classes before finally finding Gary. Gary helped us better understand Charlie’s behavior and give us foundational tools to reshape and hone in on the training we had already put into our dog. Charlie’s confidence and behavior on and off leash is night and day from when we started the training sessions to now. We are excited to continue to grow our relationship and trust with our dog as he grows, because as Gary always tells us, it’s all about the journey! Thank you Gary!

Stacey J.

This is Roxy. We waited about 10 years before finally deciding it was time to get a family pet. Don't let the cute sleeping puppy fool you. This pup is full of energy and LOVES to play and will do things that are sometimes unfavorable to get your attention.
When we decided to hire a dog trainer we looked around, called a few and decided to meet with Gary. Gary quickly became known as the puppy whisperer in our home because of his ability to get Roxy to be calm, focused and able to learn. She LOVES him!
During training sessions Gary was also training "me" to handle Roxy and teaching me skills that I can continue to use throughout her life.
We are all so thankful for his great skills!
It's a bonus that he his personable and fun to work with.
Do yourself a favor, stop looking and give Gary a call, you won't be disappointed.
~ Stacey

Denise J.

Gary Maria did an excellent job of helping my husband and me get through a difficult time with a challenging Pitbull-mix rescue dog. Since we don’t have young children, I was looking for a German Shepherd &/or Pitbull-mix because there were so many of those breeds in the shelters. One of our adult daughters had adopted a GSD rescue about a year ago & was having a great experience with her. Another close family friend also worked at a rescue with Pitbulls & had had so many positive things to say about them. After submitting many applications, I was finally contacted by a rescue agency about a 1-year-old female Pit-mix who was dog-friendly and child-friendly.

We went to meet her with our dogs, including our daughter’s German Shepherd, to make sure the rescue dog would get along with all of us. It went fantastically! And she was such a cutie! We brought Montana home with us to be the latest addition to our family.

I started noticing that this experience was going to be a challenge when I brought Montana into the backyard the next day. She started doing zoomies, but then she started growling at me (not in a friendly way) and jumping and biting at my feet & hands. I was able to distract her and got her calmed down. I was crate-training her & training her on-leash every day, as I had done effectively with all of the other dogs I had. She was doing fairly well with those things. And, she could be very sweet when she was calm. However, she would growl, lunge and bite at me whenever I would take her out to play. If I said “no,” she would back away and growl more seriously. I started to be a little afraid of her at those times, especially since she was a Pitbull-mix. I was really starting to wonder if I had made the right choice in adopting her. I just wanted a friendly, loving companion, not a Doctor Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. That’s when I started looking for a dog trainer and I was lucky enough to find Gary Maria.

Gary came to our house (we were all wearing masks) for a consultation. He has been working with all types of dogs for over 30 years. He had Montana calmly lying next to him within about 20 minutes of coming to the house. After talking with him, I realized that this was not going to be a quick, overnight solution, but it was going to be a process that he was going to teach us that would require daily work on our part and have Montana behaving well after 6 weeks. Although I was concerned about Montana’s behavior in the short-run (I must confess I didn’t want Gary to leave while I still had a little bit of fear of Montana), I knew that this would be the best solution in the long-run – we would have the tools that we needed to work with our new dog and we would also be establishing our relationship and trust with her, as opposed to sending her away to a boarding dog training school. So, we signed up for the once-a-week in-home training.

Each week, we would work on training different behaviors. Gary would listen to the problems we encountered the week before and make suggestions as to what we could do to address those issues, in addition to progressing through his training steps. By the end of the 6 weeks, Montana has turned into a really sweet, affectionate, playful, “normal” dog. She no longer jumps/growls/bites at us – she is able to play with us politely. She also plays really nicely with the other dogs in our family. We still have things that we’re working on (barking at dogs we pass when we’re in the car, being very stressed/barking when we take her to new places, etc.), but we feel like Gary has given us the tools to train Montana to improve these behaviors. And, Gary is just a phone call away to help us with any more challenging issues that might come up. We HIGHLY recommend Gary Maria to help you train your new rescue dog. He’s especially experienced with helping to bring out the great qualities in the more challenging breeds of dogs (Pitbulls, German Shepherds, etc.) that fill the shelters/rescue agencies. With your commitment to the process, Gary will help you have a wonderful outcome.

Katharine N.

Our family worked with Gary back in 2020/2021 to train our two new rescue pups who had been saved from very unsavory living conditions. My mom adopted one of the dogs and we adopted the second, and Gary was kind enough to train us all at the same time. Three years later, we cannot thank him or recommend him enough. Not only were his teachings incredibly helpful during the raucous puppy stage, but we have been able to implement what we learned from him repeatedly in the years since, and the results speak for themselves. We have two sweet, happy, obedient pups who get along with us, each other, and everyone they meet despite growing up during quarantine. If you are looking for the right trainer, you can stop now—this is your guy. Thank you Gary!