About Allbreed Hidden Fencing & Allbreed Obedience Academy

Allbreed Obedience Academy is the training half of a Lockport business that is better known locally for the other half, hidden fencing. Bryan Barish founded the academy in 1995, and the site is straightforward about the order events happened in: the business "started with only behavior modification and obedience training in 1995", and the fencing came later, in 1997, because the dogs he was being called in to fix had been badly trained to somebody else's fence.

What it offers

Two things, and the site keeps them separate. The obedience academy sells obedience training and behavior modification, with a stated service area of Niagara County and northern Erie County. The Pet Stop dealership sells and installs hidden fencing across Genesee, Niagara and Orleans counties, and includes the boundary training that goes with it. The business states that only a certified dog trainer will care for clients' dogs.

Approach

The fence-training method the business promotes, GentleSteps, is described as using very low levels of collar stimulation during a five-day initial phase, with owners spending five to ten minutes three times a day. The site argues at length against long-duration corrections, calling a competitor's ten-, twenty- and thirty-second corrections animal cruelty, and against GPS containment on reliability grounds. Whether a reader agrees with the position or not, the business states it plainly rather than burying it.

The owner

Bryan Barish holds dual bachelor's degrees from Northwood University and lists continuing education including an animal behavior class at Cornell. The site says he has personally trained over 8,000 dogs since 1995. Outside the business he served as a board member and president of the Niagara SPCA for more than seven years and continues as a senior animal cruelty officer there, served as a special deputy K-9 handler for the Niagara County Sheriff's Office, and retired as chief of the Niagara County Auxiliary Police after 25 years. He has also worked as a certifying officiant for the American Working Dog Association and the Eastern States Working Dog Association. That last item is a credential and a role, not a menu: this business does not advertise protection or service-dog programs.