Canine Learning Center - Fort Collins, Colorado

Brayden S.

Brought our 6 year old dog to get a massage for the first time. She seemed extremely comfortable for the majority of the appointment and only seemed to whine and turn back once when he touched the end of her spine at the base of her tail. Not much…but noticeable. The appointment seemed a bit off as when we showed up for our scheduled time at 10:00am, he accidentally forgot his keys to the shop that day. We were pushed to 10:30am. He was cursing throughout our appointment and answered a phone call from the owner of business without announcing to us - just a bit of an unprofessional experience as a client. We went to an appointment after our session and when we got home we let our dog out to potty. When she tried to poop she began wincing and crying as she couldn’t lift her tail. She began whining restlessly and can’t get comfortable. This was around Saturday at 3:00pm. We called the center to see if anyone could give advice on how to help our poor girl. She can’t wag her tail and when she gets excited now she just begins to cry. The website says they are open till 9:00pm on Saturdays so when I called a few times without answer I decided to drive there and find it empty. Due to the situation it was decided by vet that she received a soft tissue injury to her tail and is now on pain meds in a cone. Really disappointed the website and times were misleading and there’s seems to be some disorganization.

T V.

I've been using Canine Learning Center for over 20 years to help train my puppies and take them to doggie daycare. I love Julie, the owner.
She genuinely cares about the dogs and has great, caring staff. Customers who haven't ever worked at a Humane Society or as a Vet Tech should think twice before leaving a harsh review. Let's face it, this business in general is a lot of poop and pee. In addition, dog owners tend to channel all their personal quirkiness onto their dogs; therefore creating quite...shall we say a "unique mix" to deal with everyday. I'm so grateful for Canine Learning Center's dedication to providing a safe, fun environment for dogs to exercise and socialize !!

Joel M.

We are about half way through a puppy training class and it's been awesome.

CLC gives you a good bag of treats every week, and they even gave me an extra collar they had lying around when my puppy kept popping out of her break away collar.

We have covered all kinds of basic commands like sit, stay, leave it, come, calm etc. They do a lot of leash training too. Our puppy is doing great and is responding really well. She also loves the few minutes of unstructured play every week with the other puppies. They break up the group into a small/calm and large/active group which is nice.

We get to take our extra treats home which helps training and we get a homework sheet every week too. It's very comprehensive and the trainer makes herself available to answer additional questions after class. They clearly care and really know what they're doing.

Emily S.

I visited the Canine Learning Center with a friend, as I am thinking about getting a dog and would want a friendly place to train and also meet the local canine community. I was fortunate to watch a class and was super impressed.

It is under new ownership - Brad and Kathy are really helpful and friendly. The space is super clean and inviting.

They offer a huge range of classes from beginner to competitive in many disciplines - Very encouraging of all levels and creates an awesome environment to learn and grow.

I am looking forward to coming back there for more classes.

Kristin C.

Our dog loved this place and so did we! We did beginner and intermediate obedience classes here. We got some great tips and we saw huge improvements in our dog with their training programs! Not only are the classes fun and affordable, but we got some great ideas on how to continue training on our own after the classes were finished. Unfortunately we had to put our sweet Luna down before we could take Canine Good Citizen, but The Canine Learning Center gave us some wonderful memories with our dog.

Amy T.

Over the years, I've done tons of dog training with Julie and her staff at the Canine Learning Center. They're always positive and you leave feeling good and motivated to work with your dog. Our dogs love training there! The staff is very skilled at reading dog behavior and teaching you the best ways to teach your dog. I'm so thankful for their guidance! Highly recommend!

Deborah R.

When we initially welcomed herding dogs into our family, we tested every training facility within reasonable driving distance. The Canine Learning Center has been our training home for almost two decades. It's worth having dogs just to be able to go to classes here. They're relaxed and effective. We've done obedience, agility, and rally work, with the mix depending on the dogs' preferences. Some of our dogs earn titles. Some just go to class for the fun of it. Strongly recommended. / This is edited to say that we've now been training at Canine Learning Center for about three decades (I think I underestimated the first time I wrote) and are still happy. There are new owners as of 2023 and the high level of offerings continues. Note that all of our dogs are rescues and some have had (or currently have) issues. Lots of possibilities for them here.

Hannah H.

I had a troubling experience with the Canine Learning Center (CLC) about a year ago. I chose CLC because I was looking for a daycare that would behavior-match dogs, particularly for my selectively social dog who prefers calmer, chiller dogs as friends. After my dog passed his intro assessment with Julie (the owner), I felt confident about the techniques used by her staff to manage dog behavior. He even got an A+ report card after his first day of daycare!

But on his second day at CLC, my dog was involved in a fight with an aggressive dog when Julie was not present. Her staff had separated the dogs earlier in the day, but they were allowed to interact *again* in the afternoon, leading to the fight. I was told that the other dog was the instigator, but that my dog "shouldn't have reacted so strongly to being attacked." Julie's manager placed the blame on my dog, even though she wasn't present during the incident and didn't witness it herself. Both dogs were expelled from CLC. And later, Julie admitted that her staff missed a crucial step in handling the situation (putting the aggressive dog in timeout after the morning incident) and I'm left to wonder if the fight would've been avoided if this step had been taken initially.

As a result, my dog sustained puncture wounds to his face and required a $300+ urgent care visit. He has scars a year later. Ultimately, I felt that my dog was stereotyped and misunderstood by the CLC staff, and his needs were mishandled. While Julie offered free private lessons to make amends, I ultimately lost trust in CLC and wouldn't return.