About Canine Case Squad

Canine Case Squad is a specialist practice and says so at the top of every page: "we exclusively work with aggression and anxiety cases – dogs who need more than basic obedience." The facility is at 37 Grandview Place in the village of Florida, by appointment only, and the caseload named on the site is fear-based aggression, resource guarding, leash reactivity, dog-to-dog aggression, bite history, stranger-directed aggression and household conflict.

Trainer or behaviorist

The site spends real space on a distinction that is often blurred. Training, as they put it, opens communication and teaches the dog what the owner wants – sit, stay, come, down, heel. Behaviorism asks why the dog does what it does. Their own test for which you need is blunt: if your dog listens and follows commands but becomes aggressive in specific situations, that is a behavior case, not a training case. Daniel and Shari began their education in 1990 and were certified by the Animal Behavior Center of New York; both are Board Certified Companion Animal Behavior Counselors, both have been published and have lectured to trainers and behaviorists, and Daniel taught undergraduate and graduate classes in applied canine behavior on the ACAS faculty.

What you can book

The published service list is a behavioral evaluation, boarding and at-facility training, court evaluations, dog-to-dog and inter-species aggression work, geriatric consultations, rehabilitation and expert witness testimony, with behavior modification sold as a block of five or ten sessions. There is also a Puppy Head Start for dogs under four months, aimed at heading problems off before they form. The evaluation is described as a genuinely two-way decision: they will tell an owner honestly whether there is a real problem, how severe it is, how much work it will take and whether it is safe to attempt in that particular household, which matters because the people who call them are often weighing re-homing or euthanasia.

The court and veterinary side

Two services here exist almost nowhere else in the county. Court evaluations are for dogs involved in a bite case: they produce a functional behavioral assessment report for the court, and note that a dangerous dog designation or a muzzle restriction can sometimes be revisited once modification work is under way. On the medical side, a behavioral report goes to the owner's own veterinarian after any consultation, and in severe cases they consult that veterinarian about short or long term pharmaceutical intervention. They also run training seminars for veterinary offices, humane societies and animal control officers on handling aggressive and anxious dogs safely.

What to expect

Two of their own dogs, Jacob and Ariel, work as canine instructors in the dog-to-dog aggression program. The site publishes before-and-after video, and behavior modification is quoted on contact. The business is rated 5.0 from 40 Google reviews.