Katana K-9 Academy -

Nicole Hardy

I cannot say enough good things about Katana K9. Five stars doesn't do them justice.

Jessica is one of the kindest, most caring people I have met. She is flexible and as long as you communicate with her she goes above and beyond to help her clients schedule sessions. She has always been understanding of situations that come up and rarely have they canceled training on me and I have been with them for 6 years now, if they do it is ALWAYS for a good reason. She also has been fantastic when scheduling for boarding my dogs when I am out of town. I literally never have to worry about them even when one of my dogs was recovering from surgery and I had to go out of town unexpectedly, they took amazing care of him.

Juan is a top notch trainer, the best of the best. He shows this with his ability to teach people how to understand their dogs better and his patience in sessions is unwavering. He understands not everyone has the same skills and if you are diligent enough and work with him you WILL become a great handler. He takes more time than necessary to go over concepts so you understand why you are doing things and not just tell you to do them. Even to this day I enjoy sitting in on new client evaluations or sessions to hear the same things I heard years ago because it's always nice to have a refresher. He believes in sharing information which not many trainers do.

I have become a better partner to my dog by finding this company. Years ago I came to them with the notion of just doing some protection work and I have turned into a national competitor in French Ring with dogs who weren't right for the sport. This business is worth every penny, who knows sometimes you will find a passion in your life that you never knew you had just by being around Juan and Jessica.

I look forward to being with you guys for many more years to come.

Kyle Elder

Great dog trainers!!!

I have been around Juan and Jessica for years and it has always been a pleasure to work and talk with them. I can always count on them to board my dog and know that he is taken care. They are caring and compassionate people with a true passion for training that really shows in their work with their clients and their beloved dogs.

They treat your dog like family and always respond with updates when asked in a prompt manner. They also treat their clients like family and are incredibly understanding about last minute arrangements and changes of plans.

If you need a top notch dog trainer, look no further.

Brianna Simpson

My Malinois puppy, Hawk, and I love working with Juan! Juan is an exceptional teacher and he has wealth of knowledge when it comes to dog training. I leave every session feeling motivated and inspired! I have yet to meet another dog trainer who commits such extensive time with me to break everything down in a clear and concise way. Juan always ensures that I understand the information and can apply it correctly with Hawk. He’s kind, encouraging, and strives to make sure that Hawk and I continue to progress, week after week. He is the best in the industry. You will not be disappointed working with such a fantastic trainer whether it’s for your pet dog training needs or sport dog. I continue to look forward to all my training sessions!

Erin Beasley

Jessica honestly saved our lives! She's the sweetest, loveliest person who prioritizes not only training dogs but training owners how to better handle dogs. She worked with our hyperactive boxer Ollie at a different business before starting Katana K9, and when she started her business we took our second dog directly to her and Juan. They can handle any type of breed, any type of behavioral issue, many different styles of training and many different training tools. Her off-leash training and large animal desensitization with our pups has allowed me to take them to many different places that they never would have been able to go before. And her guidance on reading canine body language/cues has helped me immensely to spot behavioral issues before they become bigger problems. Highly, highly, highly recommend. 12/10 🙂

Vennett Galindo

Just to start, my experience with Jessica and Juan was more than I could’ve asked for! My chocolate chihuahua mix, Oliver, had a lot of trouble with other dogs and had to work on his aggression towards them; and that’s where Katana K9 Academy came in. After 8 weeks of the rehabilitation program my pup is a delight around other dogs and my anxiety of a possible encounter has been relieved. I will be recommending them for any future dog parents that need the help. Thank you again! I’m so eternally grateful to you both and the rest of your team.

Brandon Beattie

I hate writing bad reviews, but Katana has left me with no choice. My wife and I bought one of their packages for our recently adopted Belgian Malinois in November of 2022. We scheduled and showed up for the first session which was a little less than one hour, in total because we had to wait for them to secure their personal dogs before getting started. My wife went to a second session without me which seemed fine.

Now the bad part. Juan, the owner and husband of Jessica, who both work in this company unfortunately sustained an injury working with another dog. We were unable to schedule the rest of our sessions due to this. We were told by Jessica that they would reach out to us another time to let us know when Juan had recovered from his injury. We were completely understanding of this. My wife and I ended up dealing with a pipe bursting in our home which took 100% of our attention to resolve and we were displaced for almost 6 months during the holidays.

Jessica, nor any representative of katana reached out to us to let us know that Juan was back in commission so that we could finish the package that we pre-purchased from them. Sometimes life gets in the way. That's understandable. it did for us too. But Jessica is making it our problem, and taking absolutely zero responsibility for the fact that they are the reason we didn't get the service delivered, which I find to be irresponsible, unprofessional, and unbecoming of a business owner. My wife had sent multiple texts that were not replied to concerning the e-collar that they charged us $250 for which we found later on was a complete rip off.

There was other dialogue between Jessica and my wife, but she was rather unresponsive overall and didn't seem like she wanted to help us anymore despite the fact that we paid $600 upfront.

Fast-forward over a year later to today. we have reached out requesting a refund of $400 as four sessions were not delivered because of them. Juan could not deliver on his promise to do his job because he got hurt and then Jessica told us that she got sick during the holidays. They just kept putting us off. Today Jessica told my wife that they have a policy that they basically can't refund us even though it's their fault that they didn't deliver. Literally is not our fault whatsoever. We completely forgot about it over a year later because they didn't bother to remind us, which I find to be just bad customer service on their part. So they basically are stealing $400 from us.

Don't take your dog here. They will steal from you and gaslight you to make it your fault and keep your stolen funds.

C T

Dog owners beware. This company is a fraud. They were willing to take my $ upfront, have me sign a contract that states if you don't receive all sessions within 4 weeks you forfeit your costs. They cancelled on me for personal reasons on their end, and I was understanding, compassionate and patient. Life changed in the in between and I no longer had the dog who I had bought the package for so requested a refund. They hadn't delivered due to their personal reasons which we were fine with but then everyone got busy and forgot about each other. Jessica is refusing to refund my costs, she is blaming me, she is pointing out the contract and highlighting the part that says we had 4 weeks to receive our sessions, despite my clarifying for her that it was due to their personal reasons the sessions were cancelled. I am honestly in disbelief. Who does that? It's hundreds of dollars and I didn't even think about it until recently, and she is blaming me for not requesting the refund sooner. I requested the refund within 30 days which I think is more than reasonable, but instead Jessica has opted to hold my money hostage although they didn't deliver and now I no longer have the dog. Talk about getting something for nothing! It's basically like paying Starbucks for your order at the window and then they're like oh sorry come back later the barista is sick so you're like ok cool I understand and hope the barista feels better soon. You forget you paid for the order already and then later when you remember you ask for a refund since now you don't drink coffee anymore and they're like oh sorry you should have come back sooner. Um, no? It's businesses like these that make me wonder how they're even still in business. It's stealing. Thievery. Taking my money and not delivering. She did offer to transfer the sessions to my other dogs but they're already trained so I don't have the need for that, although that was nice of her to offer but I would rather have my money back since the package was for a specific dog who I had at the time but no longer have currently, and my other dogs aren't in need of the service and aren't the kind of dogs you would take to a K9 Academy anyway. Ugh, I felt the need to share here because I have legitimately been ripped off and scammed. I tried to get Jessica to see where I was coming from and to see how requesting a refund and asking for it within 30 days is more than reasonable, but she is very defensive, and placing blame on the client (me), which to be honest is so unprofessional I almost don't know what to say about that. I was going to post a 1-star review, but her husband Juan is cool so I'm going to consider it a 2-star experience since he is nice. If I were rating Jessica alone it would be a 1-star experience. I can't speak to the results of their training as I only had a couple of sessions before she cancelled, so this review is primarily concerning Jessica's unprofessionalism, disregard for my reasonable refund request, discourtesy, rude communication, and stealing from me. I made a mistake coming here. It seems good on the outside and maybe they're good with dogs, I'm not sure as I didn't have enough of an experience to really even know on that, but administratively, professionally and financially, I would definitely not come back. I still can't believe she is holding my funds hostage and refusing to give it back when they didn't deliver. Huge bummer as I thought I was hiring a 5-star company when we initially found them on Yelp and reached out, but I can see that since then their ratings have gone down so obviously their quality has gone down. Oh well, goodbye to my hundreds of dollars. That was an expensive lesson learned. Ouch.

Tara Williams

We are so glad we took our puppy to see Jessica!! I was super reluctant in the beginning to have our puppy away for so long and also if it was going to be a worthwhile process or not, but we just had our 4th child and I knew we needed to try something. Boy I couldn’t have been more wrong! Our dog came back and we were shocked. A close friend of ours came over and she couldn’t believe it either. She probably mentioned it at least ten times how awesome it was that he’s changed for the better and that it was the first time she enjoyed being around him.
I want to also bring up about the balanced training. This was another thing I was skeptical about in the beginning. I think the majority of us have bought into the falsity that the e-collar is a “shock collar” and that it basically “electrocutes the dog all over” and “how horrible it is,” etc. Again couldn’t have been more wrong! Once Jessica explained what the e-collar was, I made the connection that it’s basically a TENS machine my husband uses for his muscles at home. I’ve also had TENS machine used on me when at the Chiropractors office. So once that connection was made, it gave me such great ease on incorporating that into the obedience training for our puppy. That with the positive reinforcement makes for a excellent balance.
You can really tell that Jessica loves what she does and takes great care and pride in her modalities of training. She gets great results.
She meets with you after to help you get more confident in your skills as an owner to keep up what she has worked on with your dog. I couldn’t speak more highly of her skills and the training our puppy received. What a relief to have a well mannered puppy that will listen to you and be your companion. What more can you ask for?!