absoluteDOGS Reviews 498

I have been following AD a few months now I first joined there STAS program 25 days of playing games every day and wow it’s changed my relationship with Ollie,

I have now joined Games club the Netflix of dog training and can’t wait to deep dive more into our relationship

I’ve learned so much from Lauren. Her positive outlook, absolute love for dogs and games based training approach has been a game changer! I feel more confident and and loving with my dogs and they are happier for it!

May 5’th I paid £650 for a one year full membership of Club. November 3’rd Absolute dogs decided to cancel my subscription, with no warning, so I only had 6months acess. Took them 3 months and a lot of e-mails to finaly give me a 50%refund, and now they have the nerve to call it “a gesture of goodwill”…oh the irony. I am so dissapointed, but it is libarating to turn my back to their Cult.

Honesty and refunds all a complete myth. Breaking the Equality Act 2010 with regard to meeting the needs of disability. Steer clear if you want to keep regard of others and for yourself.

absoluteDOGS is a life saver for so many people around the world transforming their relationship with their dogs based on kind, reward based training. I’m so impressed with the help available by the team.

I was a member of Absolute Dogs as one of their Pro Dog Trainers from 2019 to 2023, and left in October after being repeatedly disappointed by decisions taken by both upper level management and regular staff members.

In July, the directors of the company were implicated in a dog welfare scandal, and one of the directors admitted to it in a (since deleted) facebook post and said she would step away. Members of the community were aghast, understandably so, and had a lot of questions. All of these questions were ignored, and most of them deleted. People were removed from facebook groups (which were contractually part of the service they had paid for!), with little warning. It took over 2 weeks for the company to have any kind of official response, and the general shape of the response was "The implicated director will step down, stop asking questions".

Many of us were dissatisfied with this, but chose to give the remaining staff and directors the benefit of the doubt. This did not work out well for us. Service did not return to normal, and things (such as facebook lives) that we were promised were not delivered. People continued to be censored and silenced.

In late october, it was announced that the previously disgraced director would be making her big return at their annual conference, Super Trainer Live. It was also announced that the other director would be "stepping back". In this instance, stepping back actually meant resigning from all Absolute Dogs related business. I, along with many others, was incredibly upset by this.

To be crystal clear, I personally have lost business as a dog trainer because of my affiliation with Absolute Dogs. People are aware of what has happened (it was an open secret in the dog agility world for years before this). I have had to stop using materials I paid thousands of pounds for, remove any mention of Absolute Dogs from all of my promotional materials and website, and have had to release a statement explaining that I am no longer affiliated with AD in order for people to begin to trust me as a dog trainer again.

I asked terminate my membership and to receive a refund and was assured that it would be processed quickly. After 2 weeks, I had to ask again, then again a week later. I was not refunded from August as I requested (even though I had a very reasonable argument that the services I paid for weren't delivered). I was also removed from all of the facebook groups (even though I should have had lifetime access to them per the terms of purchase).

I am very unhappy with the way that I was treated, with the way that this has affected by business (and continues to affect my business). I have hundreds of hours of work ahead of me to replace resources that I paid an awful lot of money for.

I have been left with an incredibly bitter taste in my mouth over the handling of this whole affair.

Absolute Dogs have demonstrated that they consider the welfare of dogs, and the welfare of their clients to be unimportant to them.

I would not now, nor will I ever again recommend Absolute Dogs to anybody.

Fantastic company. So kind and courteous. As a dog lover/owner there is so much helpful information but at the heart of it all is having fun.

Too much money in your bank account?
There's a game for that!

I bought many courses and PDT. I chose to do PDT simply because AD had a good reputation, it was over the pandemic thus a project to keep busy with, they were popular and seemed a sensible decision. As a pre existing dog trainer I was shocked by the sheer amount of fluff throughout the course. Far too much reliance on creating loyal followers than actually giving folk an education about dog training.

I found the old school nilif approach ( you must learn to earn type approach ) , nicely packaged as " ditch the dish" as something I could never get on board with. The games were good, but eventually they become just endlessly recycled.

I bought a "scentwork course" that was nothing more than a workshop recording, but nothing they advertise is clear- deliberately so. Instead relying on FOMO marketing.

Then it's publicly admitted Lauren got " carried away" with breeding many dogs shall we say.

Personally not something I appreciate my business being associated with. Something that when I expressed I was removed from groups I had paid for as part of courses, and had courses removed.

Their techniques of deprivation of walks / exercise and having to earn bits of food often create dogs with complex issues .

Don't fall for the fomo marketing. Look carefully into what you get, and the ethics of all parties involved before parting with your cash or creating a dog with worse issues.

Purchased a couple of courses several years ago because I thought Tom Mitchell is a veterinarian and Lauren Langman is a top agility trainer so they must know their stuff. Eventually the company started using MLM tactics. Fair play, I thought. They're taking the opportunity to grow the company. I only found out later that loads of their course material is from other well established trainers (and costly self-help gurus) who they never gave credit to. Eventually many of us grew suspicious that they were grooming members to follow a cultish mentality but we were too nervous to speak out. The more savvy ones got out by 2019 but Tom and Lauren were still able to sucker people in especially because of the lockdown when everyone got dogs and was home on social media (to be fair, some of their training advice works but it's really training advice re-hashed from other trainers). It was like a perfect storm for absoluteDogs and the upsell was relentless.

Fast forward to July 2023 when public allegations were made that Lauren was a puppy farmer and Tom was also implicated as a complicit party since some of the litters had his kennel affix. So now we have a former Captain of Team GB Agility and a practicing veterinarian involved in sordid activities that totally contradict what their public personas were all about. Even more damning were puppy buyers and former "volunteers" and fellow Games Club/Training Academy, PDT, PDT Geek, PDT Genius, PDT Club, etc. members who have provided evidence to those who aren't blinkered by the cult. If you dared voice any sort of doubt, asked for transparency or clarification, or questioned their ethics or business model or treatment of customers in their Facebook groups, your comment was deleted and you were removed from their groups that you paid to be in. Talk about mismanagement. Many of us have asked for refunds since we are not getting what was advertised to us and what we paid for. The entire situation of how they handled things is a travesty. It is an abuse of trust. The hypocrisy of teaching students about relationship training and preaching animal welfare while they got carried away with 'overbreeding' (as Lauren put it) is vile.

This is my experience and the experience of many others. I regret having recommended absoluteDogs to people in the past because no one in their right mind could look at the evidence brought forth and think it's all been a mistake or 'trial by social media'. It is shameful. And like many, I've been waiting for weeks to hear back from their ASK team.

Also, try not to be fooled by some of the recent favorable reviews. I recognize some of the names that wrote them. There have been many new recent hires and a lot of the reviews were written by people who work for the company or are related to people working for the company.

They censor members of their community seeking answers to allegations of unethical breeding by their founder Lauren Langman. They removed people from their fb group that they use for community purposes who are vocally upset about the situation. Basically, don't question the cult or you get removed.

I have invested my time and money with AD and I loved it and learned a lot.
However, In August one of the owners admitted to over breeding and stated they were resigning.
I decided to stay with them.
No evidence of a resignation came and I emailed twice and received no answer.
I became aware that I had been removed and blocked from all FB groups, even one linked to a course I enrolled in July.
The next day I learned the other partner had resigned, his details removed from company house the next day! I learned this from a 3rd party photo of a FB post.
Still now, Lauren's name remains on company house.
I emailed them to discuss my disappointment that members had not received information of this and to ask why I have been blocked.
I have not received a reply.
The way in which they treat their customers is terrible.
When it was all happening about the puppy farming all anti comments were deleted and pro comments kept. I was radio silence for a couple of weeks until Lauren's statement.
Now it seems it was all a lie and there was no intention to step down.
Edit - so it seems I have not been blocked and groups have been archived, although I could initially see the groups and had been removed.

We spent literally hundreds of pounds on courses and were happy with the company that gave free Facebook group support with each course and lives. We were even members of their training academy. I happily recommended them to people we met. Then came the Lauren Langman scandle and puppy farming allegations (google for more info). We are intelligent people and stuck by the company as we were aware we did not know all the facts. Tom made one written statement and the all FaceBook lives stopped. Lauren announced that she would be stepping away from AD. What actually happened was the opposite. Tom resigned from AD and all associated companies. Lauren and her partner (also associated with the puppy farming allegations) are now sole directors. The lack of transparency and honesty doesn't stop there. ALL the facebook groups have been archived and our free groups and communities that came with us buying courses have been archived. I emailed the company to enquire where we could now access the support we had, to be cheerfully told how exciting it was that the company was moving off FaceBook to a new platform, Circle. Lots of high five emojis followed telling me how brilliant it was all going to be as long as I subscribed with them and handed over money for something I had been getting for free. Money I know will be going into Lauren Langman's pocket. So be aware of the promises they make, know who the directors of this company actually are. We certainly, as loyal customers for years will not buying into the positive camp, where genuine concerns are masked, deleted and the answer is... it will all be brilliant if you give us money for something you were getting for free, and which had been promised when you purchased courses in the past.

I am a Pro Dog Trainer with this company, having qualified in 2019 and subscribed to their Club membership since it became available. In 2022 I paid £800 for year-long access to a course called Genius, which began in February 2023. Next week, this course material will be made available to all subscribers for free. There has been no acknowledgement that this is unfair, no compensation, and no apology. In August 2022 allegations were made about puppy farming by one of the directors. These have not been denied or refuted. Having previously stepped down, we now hear she's coming back. Draw your own conclusions about their attitude to both dogs and people.

I have needed to train Bella as she isn't a very easy dog, and she is very noisy. The stop barking course has helped me a lot to understand Bella and her training. This means we can have more fun, and more relationship in the long run! We are now part of the Games Club which is the best dog training space I have ever seen. And the best thing is, I can do it all from my home. Lovely!

I’ve been part of the community for several years. The games work! The enormous number of resources and videos make it all worth while. Honestly, there is so much to take advantage of - you won’t find a resource like this for your dog anywhere else.

Sexier Than a Squirrel is one of Absolute Dogs' training programmes and it's brilliant. Short, easy to follow, learn and teach exercises over a month transformed my relationship with my dogs, and helped me to help my own dog training clients. I stayed on and joined the Games Club which has amazing support on Facebook, with really knowledgeable admins. As they say on Absolute Dogs, there's a game for absolutely everything!

ABSOLUTE DOGS AMAZING
I have been using absolute dogs for over 2 years and wow they have transformed my dogs life and I, we have stress free walks, amazing recall, we can go to the woods and the beach and not have to worry thankyou to games club and STAS and there amazing badges, we have, we also love there products, we have our trusty easy to clean long line, and treat bags that colin gets her amazing ditch the bowl treats from when we are playing games if you havnt used before head over and check it out its simply amazing and am so grateful to the AD team for all they do :-)

Have used the resources and library of games to train my dogs for several years. There is so much helpful information for every problem and above all its fun. Highly recommend

Amazing training system for dog owners and professional dog trainers. They take a mindful approach to dog training based on respect and kindness. Training is simple and fun despite the wealth of science behind the methodology. It's a fresh approach to training.

We have utilised many of the Absolute Dogs resources & have found them to be super useful.

They are fun, engaging & easy to repeat activities which makes dog training enjoyable & effective.

The range of resources is vast & caters for many learning styles, including written e-books through to videos.

We would highly recommend! :)