About The Dog Counselor

The Dog Counselor is Dean Miller working privately with owners around Nashville. The tagline on his site – "Teaching your dog through love, discipline and mutual respect" – is a statement of values; what follows below is what the site says he actually does.

What you can book here

Private instruction covering obedience, behavior problems, aggression "and various other dog and owner related issues". He also teaches seminars across the country. The published material is about approach rather than packages: no program lengths, no prices, no board-and-train. The first step is a conversation – he describes starting by speaking with the owner to understand the dog's individual situation before working with the dog.

Method

The core claim is a communication-first approach: "It starts with listening and speaking to your dog in a way that he or she understands", with techniques he says are "based on the way dogs communicate with each other". On reinforcement he is explicit – the site describes him "working with positive rewards and loving motivation" so dogs "learn to please their owners because they want to, not because they are forced to". He also stresses training the owner as much as the dog, and says knowing the environment a dog lives in is a large part of understanding its behavior, which is why the work happens in owners' homes.

Background and public profile

The site says Dean has been training dogs and studying behavior for over fifteen years, and that he began by training privately with owners in their homes, then teaching classes and leading seminars on dog behavior. It lists him as the Official Trainer for the SPCA of Tennessee and as having been voted Best Trainer by readers of Nashville Paw Magazine. He is the author of a book, A Dog's Way. A page of client names is published on the site; those are his claims, not independently checked here.

Who this suits

Owners who want a one-to-one private trainer working in their own home, want the emphasis on understanding the dog rather than drilling commands, and are comfortable agreeing scope and price by phone.