About K9KEY

K9KEY is a board-and-train business on Jefferson Street in Baldwin, and the site is unusually direct about what it is not: 'WE ARE NOT A FRANCHISE. WE ARE NOT CONTENT CREATORS. JUST REALLY GOOD DOG TRAINERS.' It serves Queens, Brooklyn, New York City and Long Island, and describes itself as a family of dog trainers.

The program

The residency program is the spine of the business. Client accounts published on the site describe multi-week boarding-school stays with video footage and progress updates sent home, followed by a group clinic clients attend regularly as part of the continuing training process – the reinforcement half of the program is treated as part of the deal rather than an upsell. Four case categories are published as their own testimonial sections: puppy and obedience, aggression and reactivity, and fear and anxiety.

Where the method comes from

The site grounds its approach in sport rather than in a certification list. It says the team competes in dog sports with dogs bred for intensity, that competition dogs are much harder to handle than the common household companion, and that breeding, raising and working those dogs in a home setting is where its range of skills comes from. Steve is described as having been groomed to be a dog trainer from an early age: his father raised, trained and competed dogs through Steve's childhood in Korea and continued after the family moved to the United States.

What clients say the work is for

The reviews the business chooses to publish are heavy on rehabilitation rather than manners – a rescue with fear and anxiety around men who progressed through a seven-week program, an owner who says the dog would otherwise have had to be rehomed. One line from the site frames the pitch: 'Dog training is a service, not a product. So choose the team, not the brand.'