About K-9 Services Unlimited

What the school is

K-9 Services Unlimited, Inc., which also trades as Piazza's Dog Training School, is at 1287 Higby Rd in Frankfort. The site says the school has been serving Central New York and the Mohawk Valley since 1982 and calls itself "the first dog training school to impliment the one on one training courses for you and your pet". Salvatore Piazza writes that he has instructed clients who went on to become trainers themselves, naming Jared Horton of Jared Horton's K-9 and Frank Desimone of Alpha Obedience Dog Training.

Courses

The Courses page carries the full list. Basic Obedience covers walking on a six-foot leash, sit, sit-stay, down, down-stay and come when called, together with leash handling, voice inflection and body language. Intermediate Obedience extends that to work at a distance, and the school notes that some owners deliberately do not want off-leash work because of where they live. Agility requires the dog to already know Advanced Obedience "On & Off Leash" and runs a full obstacle set – trestle, dog walk, window jump, tunnel, high jump and teeter-totter.

Specialist courses

Personal Protection Dog Training is offered only to people who pass a criminal background check, and only to dogs that pass a temperament test. Canine Behavior is a course for owners who want to understand drives and instincts rather than just commands. Tracking Classes teach the dog to follow human scent, with the school noting the use of tracking in search and rescue, police work and the Schutzhund tracking phase; classes are capped at five dogs. Handling for Children is a Saturday-morning class for under-18s on socializing a dog, preventing bites and reacting to aggressive dogs, capped at five children. There is also Dog Swimming, which uses the school's own pond and requires advanced obedience first. The contact block lists service dogs for physical disability and emotional support.

Puppies and home study

The school's position is that "training should begin the day you bring your new puppy or dog home", and the Courses page advises starting between eight and ten weeks and never accepting a pup under seven and a half weeks. A Home Study Course exists for owners who cannot travel to classes or are home-bound, and includes free phone consultations.

Credentials as published

Salvatore Piazza's published record includes K-9 patrolman and then K-9 director at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, a 1991 diploma as a certified Police Dog Instructor from Gold Shield Training Kennels, Chief of Security for the Utica Parks System from 1993, New York State armed guard certification in 1995, K-9 director for the Utica Police Department from 1997, NAPWDA membership from 2003, AKC CGC examiner from 2005, and teaching animal behavior at Mohawk Valley Community College in 2006. These are the school's own claims and are recorded as self-reported.