We adopted a rescue Airedale terrier about 2 years ago and from day one Monty was a ‘project’. He didn’t listen at all but his worst habit was bolting for the door every time it opened. He has gotten loose several times and once was found about 2 miles away from our house. Another time he ran straight for a six lane highway. We were constantly nervous about friends and kids coming in and out of our house and Monty getting loose. It was also a pretty miserable experience walking him on a leash. He pulled and strained and barked at everything. I heard about Canine Magic from a guy who was walking his dog in my neighborhood and saw me trying to wrestle Monty. There really are no words to describe what Hal has done with Monty – and us – in a few short weeks. I keep telling Hal, and anyone else who will listen, that the change in our dog is truly a miracle!! In addition to the usual sit, stay, down, etc. Hal helped us train Monty on the important stuff that could cost him his life if he were not trained. No more battles at the front door when the doorbell rings. Monty backs up about 10 feet and we open the door wide open while he sits and waits. He goes to his ‘place’ during dinner time or when company is over and stays there until released. He walks beautifully on a leash (with a pinch collar that I once thought was cruel but it’s a lifesaver)and heels, sits at an intersection until given heel command, and no more pulling on the leash. Monty is currently learning the boundaries of his front yard and we have progressed to the point that the neighbor’s kids can play in the street and call his name and he won’t leave the yard! Hal’s training techniques are solid and effective because he thinks like a dog and teaches us how to think like a dog! I would never have guessed that our dog could be so different in just 10 weeks but he is. In fact, Monty was a better dog after the very first lesson! We can never thank Hal enough for training Monty to be such a pleasure to our family!

My husband and I brought home our first puppy Sully, and we were clueless how to train him. More than training the dog – we needed to be trained! We looked into several training options, and we decided one-on-one training would be best for us. Hal was able to give Sully the attention he needed and base the training on Sully’s and our needs. We did not have to share our training session with 5 other families like other training programs entail, plus there were less distractions for Sully during the learning stages. Eventually, Sully started learning how to obey commands in public, and we have a well balanced dog thanks to Hal!

Works magic! I cannot say enough wonderful things about Hal, but the most important is how he changed my life with my great dane Smalls. When I contacted Hal I was at my wits end and terrified of walking my dog in a situation with other dogs as he would lunge, bark, pull and was out of control. One session, one time, and I NEVER had a problem walking my dog again. He is absolutely amazing and I WISH I still lived in Orlando for more advanced training, however, he still answers my calls and gives training advice whenever I need it. Hal, if you’re reading this, THANK YOU!

Actually he is training my 3 years old Pug and the change of my dog is very notable. He is very good with dogs. 🙂

We got our yellow lab Charley in February of 2014. Hal trained our first lab back in 2000. I started with another trainer who came highly recommended when we got Charley. She was not responding with the first trainer and things were going from bad to worse. I finally found Hal’s number remembering how great he was with our first dog. I called him literally in tears and he was out within a couple of days. Hal has worked WONDERS with Charley (who is a very headstrong little girl) and she is now so much more loving and is behaving so much better for us. It is like night and day and I will NEVER EVER hesitate to call Hal if there is ever another dog in my future. I cannot recommend him highly enough. Thank you so much Hal for helping us with Charley. You are the best.

I must say that I agree with the name: Canine Magic. We have a 5 month GSD that seems to have come from a long military / police line. His behavior was extremely aggressive to anyone coming in the house – and you didn’t want to be the person walking toward us on the sidewalk. I was wondering if we would be able to keep him or give him up to become a police dog. From the very first visit, I was convinced that Hal could help turn things around; and after each visit we were seeing a different puppy. The training program was called The Well Mannered Pet and I can say that after only 5 visits he is very well behaved. Our friends can’t believe the difference. It is so nice to be able to take him to public places and watch this well mannered dog. Best investment we’ve made.

Hal literally did an amazing job training our dog and us. We rescued a lab mix and worried that he was aggressive. Hal convinced us that he was a good dog. We employed his techniques and writhin weeks we had a completely well trained, well behaved dog. Highly recommend Canine Magic!

THIS IS LONG BUT A MUST READ FOR ANYONE CONSIDERING DOG TRAINING!!!

A year ago my husband and I took in a 12 week old puppy from a rescue, a Labrador-Pitbull mix. within the first couple months of having her in our home she chewed a hole in my husband’s new leather couch, she ate one of that laminate wood stairs that leads to our second floor, she would jump all over everybody that walked through our front door, she would dig holes under our fence and take off running, she would pull and bite on her leash during walks, chew on the kids toys along with all of our shoes and clothes and she would run off and chase our neighbors as they walked past our home. By the time she reached six months old we had had enough and was ready to take her to the pound or try to find her a new home, but in hopes of making it work my husband and I decided to look into dog training. I, like most consumers, logged on and used Google in hopes of finding one in the Orlando area that would work. I called Hal from Canine Magic and spoke with him regarding the issues we were having with our new dog, he seemed very confident that the issues we were experiencing were easy fixes and that he would love to take our case on; however, at the time he was very busy with his current clients and would need to work us in over the following couple weeks. Well, I was impatient and went back to Google and located another trainer in our area of Avalon. I spoke with this second trainer over the phone and they seemed knowledgeable about dog training and behaviors so we decided to hire them. The trainer came to our home for an introduction day and gave us a price list; the prices seemed very high but we thought “you get what you pay for” so we ended up giving the entire amount up front, $750, so we could take advantage of a small discount being offered. This included 10 sessions in our home with the dog and trainer. This trainer explained that the only proper way to train a dog is to constantly feed them food or treats to get them to do what we needed; however, what happened by the 7th visit is that our dog would do nothing unless we had a bag of food with us and the dog would actually do bad behaviors in order to be corrected to get more food. Sadly, but our dog was worse than she had ever been. The trainer tried to tell me that the reason why the training was not working was because I work too much and I’m not home enough when she is there to understand how to make it work. Remembering that I spoke to Hal several weeks prior, I called him again and asked him some basic questions about dog training and he was more than willing to explain why the training we were paying for was not working and it wasn’t because I work too much. Needless to say I fired the trainer. I then called Hal again and begged him to come out and meet our dog; by this point my husband said I only had a couple days left before he was going to get rid of her. I knew that her breed, size, and being all black would get her in the front of the line to be put down; with this is mind I turned to Hal. Hal came out 2 days later to meet our dog, he spend one hour with us that day and I can honestly say that our dog was a different dog by the time he left!! My husband and I were so impressed that we hired him right away. Hal worked with us for the following few weeks and we just finished our training with him today and believe me when I say our dog is a different dog. She walks on a leash without issues, she has stopped chewing on our belongings, she listens to our commands, and doesn’t jump on any guests when they come over; realistically this is a small list of what our dog can now do. My husband and I honestly thought we were just not puppy people and that we adopted that one dog that couldn’t be trained, but Hal changed all of this. Not only did he save our dogs life by not having her taken to the pound but we also couldn’t be happier with her. Our one regret is that we didn’t hire Hal sooner. Thank You Hal!!