A Better Way to Train Your Dog

Certified Behavioral Health Dog Training for Boston MA

  • Do you live with a dog you love but don’t love all of their habits?
  • Have you tried training your dog on your own and just aren’t getting the results you hoped for?
  • Do you want to stop being frustrated with your dog and start having all that fun you visualized when you first brought home your furry family member?

WE WANT TO HELP!

So, take a deep breath, let go of any feelings of overwhelm you may have – I get it, I’ve been where you are – that’s why I want to help!

On this site you will find articles, tips and resources to help you understand and communicate effectively with your dog. That’s a big part of training. Right now, you may be speaking two different languages, which makes it hard to understand each other. Check out the blog to learn more about what it takes to live successfully with a dog. If you want my help training your dog, visit this page.

Great dogs come in all colors, shapes and sizes – just like people!

Getting a dog is a wonderful,
life-altering experience that most people wouldn’t change for the world.

Getting a dog also often comes with behavior challenges that cause stress, doubt and frustration.

Why Work With Creature Good Dog Training?

I’m Ruth Hegarty, a passionate dog trainer with a background in teaching and coaching people to feel more confident and live happier lives. I now bring those decades of life coaching expertise to my role as your dog trainer. I’ve also put the same commitment into my own dog training education as I did in my former career to support you in having a well-mannered happy dog that fits your lifestyle, brings out your best and makes you laugh.

As a certified Life Coach, I know how to ask all the right questions and reveal mindsets and beliefs that may be holding you back from successfully training your dog on your own. As a certified dog trainer and behavior consultant, I bring the knowledge of how dogs think, learn and communicate to our work with your dog to transform your life together from frustrating to fun.

Although dogs have evolved by our sides for thousands of years and are born primed to love us, they aren’t born knowing how to live in our world. That’s why training is so, so important if you want to live happily ever after with your dog. Read about the dog who changed my life AND career on our About Page.

Here’s a pic of me and my adorable client, ChaCha!

What Clients Say (so you don’t have to take my word for it!)

My dogo gately loves ruth! Her training lessons took gately from over-excited, jumpy and mouthy to patient, focused and chilled-out. he listens better now than her ever has! ruth is fantastic easy to work with, and very knowledgeable – she brougth is insight and ideas tailored to gately’s needs to each lession. we highly recommend ruth!

gately

Ruth is incredibly kind and patient, notjust wit our pup Patato, but with us as welll She helped us go from an extreamly jumpy excited Patato to a dog wha ls much calmer and an overall better listener The skills we learned with Ruth have been extreamly
thansferable to other behaviours like with recall “leave it” and similar reguests any dog land their human! would be lucky to work with Ruth,

Mel & katie

We adopted Maggie when she was 1.5 years old and she had only known rural environments. when we broughther to live with us in the city she was very Overwhelmed and afraid of unknown city noises, bikes, trucks, runners, etc. We were having a hard time walking her because she would stay still and would not want to continue walking. Ruth was very patient with us, taught us helpful strategies to address Maggie’s issues with walking and gave us good feedback on how to make Maggie more comfortable with her new environment. Ruth was patient, kind and gave us the encouragement that we needed as new dog owners. We are so grateful to Ruth and we highly recommend her!

Miggie's Pawrents

Our dog Started to get more protective and nippy overtime. He, also, started barking and growling more. Ruth was able to preform an assessment and determine the underlying issues. She was able to provide feedback and a tailored approach for helping our dog feel safe and comfortable. The advice and training she provided help us and our dog. He is back to be a calm, mellow,loving dog and part of the family. I recommend Ruth.

Creature Good Dog Training

Cambridge

I reached out to Ruth when I noticed my pup was having some resource guarding issues with other dogs. The first thing I noticed is how quickly my human-shy puppy warmed up to Ruth, I was amazed! Ruth explained the technique to counter-condition her resource guarding and went above and beyond by finding 2 volunteer families to help with the technique. It was completely safe and was performed in a positive reinforcement manner, which is very important to me. Ruth also has reasonable expectations and told me that will need to continue practicing as this behavior takes some time to overcome. Thave already seen an imprOvement in her resource guarding- several times since our sessions, another dog has run off with my pup’s toy and she has not reacted! She also taught my pup an emergency stop technique if she gets distracted and she learned it very quickly! Ruth is personable, clearly loves dogs, and is very effective! She also follows up and responds to emails quickly. I wholeheartedly recommend her to anyone who is in need of a dog traine!

Wendi H.

Arlington,MA

When I got in touch with Ruth, I was at my wit’s end with a newly adopted senior dog. But when Ruth sat next to Lucy on the floor and started interacting with her – and I saw Lucy’s response – I knew it Would be okay. It’s obvious that Ruth genuinely loves and understands dogs, and was an excellent teacher. She demystified a lot of the
training and broke it down into easily manageable pieces for us. I didn’t feel at all judged for not producing a perfectly trained dog at subsequent visits (or admitting that we’d not made a lot of headway) and Ruth gave lots of needed encouragement. She checked in between sessions and was very responsive to emails l’d sent. I appreciate, too, that Ruth is a member of a local dog owner group on Facebook and frequently shares her insights and answers people’s questions. We’d definitely recommend her!

Rhea S.

Arlington,MA