About MondioPup, Inc. – Balanced Dog Training

MondioPup, Inc. is a one-trainer business at 85 Sand Hill Road in Dover Plains, at the eastern edge of Dutchess County, and it is unusually specific about how it got here. The founder, Adrienne Chiaramonte Mesko, grew up on a Morgan horse farm in the Hudson Valley and spent her youth training and competing with horses. Dogs took over in 2011, when she adopted Benny, "a fearful dog who bit my husband John on his first night in our home." Six weeks of big-box pet store lessons produced nothing reliable, and that failure is the reason the business exists.

What is on offer

The published program list is Puppy Training, Dog Training, Private Lessons and Board and Train, with Behavior Modification and Basic Obedience described underneath. Board and train is the center of the business rather than an add-on: the site says plainly that "we have limited availability for in-person standalone lessons, priority for these session times go to those working toward or maintaining one of our board and train programs." Private lessons are published with prices – $225 for a one to one-and-a-half hour session in the client's home, $150 for the same session at the trainer's own home in Dover Plains, and $125 an hour for FaceTime, telephone or Zoom lessons. Behavior modification is framed as assessing the issue and giving "specific instructions that will eliminate your dog's bad habits," and the basic obedience lessons are explicitly owner-education: "In these obedience lessons, we train you to train your dog."

How the training is framed

The method line is short and repeated: "We use motivational training to create truly reliable results," and the promise attached to it is real-world reliability rather than a passed test – "Dogs Trained With Our Methods Make Good Decisions. Consistently Reliable Dog Training for the Real World." The training education behind that is named: the Michael Ellis School of Dog Trainers in Fairfield, California, in 2014, then a 2023 certification from Steven Lindsay in Cynopraxis and LIMA – Least Intrusive, Minimally Aversive – and a further certification in Foundation Style Dog Training that the site says is still being pursued. She also says she stays involved in working dog sports with her own dogs, which is where the business name comes from.

Where it works

The published service area is "New York's Hudson Valley Region, Dutchess County, Westchester County, Western Connecticut and Massachusetts," and the site asks prospective clients to "contact us regarding areas we serve" before booking in-home lessons – the travel radius is negotiated rather than fixed. Contact runs through a form; the site asks twice, in bold, that people fill it out to get started.

What to ask

Ask about group classes, whether aggression or protection work is taken on, and what the board and train programs cost.