NY Clever K9 Inc.

Christina is terrific. This is the first time I’ve ever owned a dog and I wanted a trainer to come in and teach me the right way to be a puppy parent from the start to make sure I didn’t accidentally teach my puppy any bad behavior. Christina has a program called Perfect Puppy and it was exactly what I needed. She understands both dog behavior and human behavior so well. She has a very calm and kind manner about her, and she takes her responsibility extremely seriously. If you’re looking for somebody to be a tough, aggressive trainer, that is not Christina. She achieved success with my dog (and me for that matter) by being calm, patient, persistent and loving. She is very professional, and I felt that my dog and I were in the right hands. I am very grateful to Christina.

Christina is a miracle worker. She is the top behavior specialist in her field. Manhattan (NYC) is the most stressful environment for all dogs, especially a dog with behavior issues, Christina has the patience and professional expertise to turn what appears to be a hopeless situation, into hope with a bright future for both owner and dog. Christina is passionate about what she does. She is honest and fair. All her clients will tell you the same.

My Corgi puppy was having anxiety issues and was resource guarding and was aggressive towards strangers in our home. It was getting to the point where it was very hard to deal with and we were searching for a solution -- luckily we found Christina. She is professional, thoughtful, and really loves and cares for your animal as if it were her own. She is incredibly knowledgeable about dog behavior and behavior modification and will transform you and your dogs relationship for the better. My puppy has been much more confident after working with Christina for a few months and is living a much happier life. Highly recommend.

With untiring enthusiasm, effort and patience, Christina taught my family and I --training us as much as our pup Leo. She is highly skilled at understanding and interpreting dog behavior and designing personalized solutions to help circumvent triggers and adjust negative behavioral issues. Christina is a natural teacher and gifted behaviorist.We are incredibly appreciative of her expertise and the compassionate care she generously shared with us. We continue to refer to the tools and techniques she taught us. Her passion for dogs, knowledge and intuitive pulse on dogs and their relationship with people is unequaled. We recommend NY Clever K9 and ‘dog whisperer,’ Christina, without reservation. Along with adopting Leo, it is one of the best decisions our family has made!

We are so grateful for NY Clever K9. Christina really understands the behaviour and needs of animals, as well as the complexities of dog ownership, rescue, and rehabilitation.After adopting a reactive rescue who was exhibiting signs of fear aggression, a vet recommended that our best option would be to put our dog down. We could see he had a willingness to learn and demonstrated sweet mannerisms but after working with two different trainers with little improvement, we were at our wits end.That is, until we met Christina. She worked with us over several months to both give us the skillset to work with our dog and better understand his needs, as well as trained our dog. We will be forever grateful to NY Clever K9 and the invaluable work that they do for dogs and their owners.

I did two sessions with Christina and it became clear she did not remember or care about my dog, and for the price point, it’s unacceptable to not receive the highest level of professional service.1. She said she would text me 10 minutes before our first session to give me a heads up when she was arriving, and after 10 minutes of waiting in the cold I had to email and contact her for her to say “I’m here down the block”. What happened to communicating you were 5-10 minutes away?2. I filled out, attached and emailed the questionnaire that was sent to me before my 2 hour eval. I then proceeded to describe during our first session incidents that occurred. It was NEVER communicated by Christina I had to be more detailed, I was actually the one that emailed her suggesting there was another incident I forgot to describe. I described my dog was protective over myself and my mother and used an “incorrect” term and Christina couldn’t seem to get past the fact that I had used other “bad” trainers before her. She actually made me feel stupid for using the wrong term, but describing the SAME type of protective aggression she was referring to (aggressive over myself and my mother which I referenced in my submission form that she didn’t look at until the first session)3. She left me a very odd voicemail clearly not meant for me. I called back and then texted to say “I think this voicemail was left for someone else”. Not only is it unprofessional to forget your clients (imagine if a psychiatrist did this?!) but to then get defensive and tell me it was meant for me AGAIN when I politely corrected her, is extremely unprofessional.Dogs are our kids and for the price she charges they should be treated like it. I am upset because my dog was super responsive to her methods, but after two sessions and $600+ it was clear there was no path forward professionally. My recommendation to Christina would be calling clients before their training session if there’s anything that could have been omitted from her checklist/submission form so you don’t waste time hashing through your dogs history of incidents DURING training sessions.

Christina is a gifted behaviorist. She is highly skilled at understanding and interpreting dog behavior and designing personalized and creative solutions for canine behavioral issues that often cause dog owners to give up on their animals. Christina worked patiently and persistently with me and my family to help us understand the source of our dogs biting (pain, leading him to respond in aggression) and to circumvent triggers that traditionally would cause the dog anxiety and frustration. She is a natural teacher to pet parents, making sure her clients understand their dogs behaviors and how pet parents often unknowingly reinforce negative habits in their pets. We are deeply grateful for the compassionate care and wisdom she so generously shared with us and the lessons we learned. The only one more grateful is our Percy!

Not a day goes by when my husband, pup, and I dont appreciate all the incredible things weve learned from Christina. We adopted an incredibly sweet, yet reactive and abused dog about a year ago from the Animal Care and Control Center in NYC. Our dog is very high energy and showed some signs of aggression and we were quite overwhelmed. She is incredibly strong, and we felt like we were walking out in public with an animal we werent sure we could safely control, yet we cared so much for her and were committed to her. Christina to the rescue. Her intelligence, sense of humor, up-beat attitude and brilliant insights helped us understand our dog and provide her with what she needs to be happy and healthy, and safe. Christina also clearly cares about our dog. We feel like we had a big therapy session as a family that lasts after each visit. And we are doing so well with our dog now, and always getting better. What a gift to those of us in this challenging situation. We are looking forward to our next bunch of sessions and I cant recommend her enough.

Excellent. Christina changed our dog’s life and ours! We got our beautiful rescue pup after Covid began, and we both worked from home. We found out when we began to leave together we had a big, big problem -she was barking, wailing and scratching at the door non stop. She had been skittish on walks, but now was refusing to go and pulling us back home. We did have to wait for an opening but Christina got us in and we are forever grateful. We worked on all of Sky’s issues and we all are so much happier now. Continuing to use the skills that Christina has taught us, we now have a new Sky- curious, confident and a little joker! who we can leave alone peacefully and walk without trying to run back home. Christina is a true expert, a professional and kind and patient as well. I highly recommend Christina and NY Clever K9!

Christina helped us with a pure bred Silky Terrier. It had many issues due to so much inbreeding. His behavior was so off the wall the Vets wanted to get him on Prozac. The boarding place banned us from bringing him back as he would bark constantly at everyone and everything. He would try to bite everyone and everything as well. Christina came in with all of her patience and dedication and helped us to learn how to manage and train Harley. We tried other boarding places and never had a problem after training!Harley is now 13 years old and we would not have been able to keep him had she not been so committed to us and our Pupper. (Our children were very small at the time and we were afraid for their safety). We know added another puppy to the family and are contacting her so she can help with the transition process as our other dogs are 13, and 7 years old. As soon as I saw a problem with the transition I knew exactly where to turn. Thank you Christina for your commitment to families and their puppers!I definitely recommend Christina!

No matter how bad you think your dog is, or how desperate you feel, dont give up - call Christina!! My husband and I thought we were on a runaway train, but Christina showed us that wasnt true. She taught us that anything can be solved with patience, positive reinforcement and awareness. We could not be more grateful for her (our dog agrees!!).Our rescue dog, Fiona, came to us terrified, distrusting, and extremely canine/animal aggressive. On every outing, her head was on a swivel and she constantly strained on the leash. If she so much as heard a collar jingle, Fiona would immediately puff up and start to growl and strain toward the dog. We tried to avoid those situations and did the best we could based on what wed learned after working with a trainer.The final straw - and when we thought we might have to give up Fiona - was when she bit a puppy in our building. After that, we called Christina, and it is the best decision wed ever made.Christina worked miracles. She helped Fiona go from a safety liability to a calmer, more confident dog who is able to walk without so much as a second glance at other pups (she doesnt even care about other dogs in close proximity in the vets waiting room!). Were feel that that the work shes done has saved Fionas life.Throughout the process, Christina has helped my husband and I as much as she did Fiona. She is a phenomenal and patient teacher, and has instilled in us the confidence and skill set to continue Fionas rehabilitation on our own (we are reassured to know that shes merely a text or call away if we need her, of course).We cannot thank her enough!!

5 stars for Christina (NY Clever K9) for helping us to develop a healthy relationship with our puppy based on mutual respect, eliminating our puppys severe food aggression, and helping us to manage her aggressive-dominant behavior.We contacted Christina at the recommendation of another NYC based trainer to help us with our cockapoo puppys food aggression, which was severe - growling and biting us as we approached her food bowl, which she guarded nonstop for hours after a feeding. Attempts to pick up the food bowl resulted in bites (to us) and a stressed out puppy.Christina patiently worked with us over a period of months (with flexible evening visits) to help us build trust with our puppy during meal times with a series of manageable steps. While our cockapoo still sometimes hangs out by her bowl for a few minutes post-meal, she wags her tail as we approach her food bowl and lets us approach to pick the bowl up without a problem. Miraculously, she will now leave the bowl to snooze, lounge on her bed, play or go out for walks. Needless to say, picking up the bowl is a breeze, and most of the time she doesnt even glance over to us as we pick it up. Meal time has become so much less stressful for all of us thanks to Christina!While we were working with Christina on our food aggression issues, our puppy began to display some signs of aggressive dominant behavior - acting out with a growl or bite if she didnt want to be brushed, touched, or have her leash or collar put on. Christina spotted these issues immediately and thanks to her help, taught us how to develop a relationship with our puppy based on mutual respect. Our puppy now sits patiently for us to put her leash/collar on, and just this morning, she stretched out on the floor so my husband could brush her hind legs. While Christina warned us that this behavior may pop up again, she gave us great tools to help manage our puppys behavior..and if it isnt something we can manage, we will gladly contact Christina again.Major plus for all of the other training tips that Christina shared, like the Find Its, the puppy push-ups, the See Mes and help with basic commands/walking.Christina is a very sweet, caring person, and her tough love approach helped give us the push we needed to stop excusing our puppys behavior and start taking action so we could have a great family pet for many years.

I spent a lot of time researching dog trainers and training schools in New York before settling on Christina, and I know I made the right choice. My newly adopted rescue dog Juniper was having trouble adjusting to the city. He was extremely leash-aggressive--he barked and lunged at other dogs, garbage trucks, and any other loud sounds. Additionally, we had an issue with my neighbor across the hall, whose dog had attacked Juniper soon after we arrived. Just trying to get Juniper out the door for a walk was difficult, as the smell of the other dog made him snarl, bark, growl as we tried to walk past it. Worst of all, Junipers anxiety, along with possible issues from his past, meant that he was often lashing out at me, snapping and growling if I approached him the wrong way.Today we went for a 90 minute walk in Central Park. Since it was warm and sunny for February, the park was crowded with people, bikes and dogs. Juniper did not bark or lunge once the entire time, and even was able to interact a few times with other dogs. Narrow pathways where we couldnt avoid some dogs werent a problem, because now, thanks to Christina, I have a plan to help deal with Junipers anxiety around other dogs in tight spaces. He is no longer nervous about being touched, so we stopped to have some cuddle breaks. A woman passing by called Juniper a good little dog.Christina taught me how to understand Junipers body language, how to deal with difficult situations around other dogs, and even how to make my apartment a place where he can feel safer and more secure. We worked out a method that allows us to walk quietly past my neighbors apartment without setting off her dog. I really appreciate Christinas time and patience with both Juniper and me. It wasnt always easy, but I feel like we are on a path towards success, and that life will get better and better for Juniper. I highly recommend working with Christina!

I cannot say enough about Christinas services. Her expertise and professionalism combined with her love of dogs has had a profound impact on the way we interact with our dog, a black and tan coonhound named boh.With such a large dog, it was crucial that he be on his best behavior. Anxiety had started to form after several moves and other types of upheval and Boh developed separation anxiety and stranger agression. After having tried other trainers and methods we were at the end of our rope but Christina stepped in and showed us what a charismatic and wonderful dog we had under our noses the entire time. Adopting her methods has improved our relationship with Boh and has allowed him to shine.I cannot thank Christina enough nor can I recommend her highly enough. You owe it to yourself and your dog to enroll with Christina.Thanks for reading!

Rosie, our rescue pit bull, is a changed dog thanks to Christina. In August we adopted Rosie, who at the time was estimated to be 2 1/2 years old. Soon thereafter we observed she was severely dog aggressive. Could dog aggression be treated, were pit bulls as dangerous as rumored to be and was she safe to keep, especially with our 17 month old son? We scoured the NYC area for a reputable and very experienced dog behaviorist until we came across Christina... and thank goodness we did! In only 8 weeks, Rosie went from a dog that lurched, lunged and barked at every passing dog (to the extent that we had to walk around cars to avoid dogs on sidewalks) to a dog that could pass a pack of dogs barely noticing. Christina is an incredible behaviorist and completely rehabilitated her by teaching us, Rosies owners, how to use positive, reward based training (in carefully planned out stages) to change Rosies psychology of other dogs. It was amazing and not something my husband or I thought possible. We also cant thank Christina enough for educating us on how misunderstood pit bulls are and showing us how wonderful they can be, both inside and outside the house, Rosie is an amazing, affectionate, beautiful dog.

Incredible! I could not say enough good things about Christina, the behaviorist who owns this business. Our 1 year old lab was suffering from severe separation anxiety and we had wasted time and money going from trainer to trainer with minimal results that didnt last and included confining her to a crate. We kept listening because we felt helpless, exhausted and had been told this was the only way to treat separation anxiety. Thankfully, due to a wonderful vet tech we knew, we were informed of the difference between a trainer and behavior specialist and that we needed to speak to a dog behavior expert, someone truly qualified, educated and specialized to work with behavior problems in dogs. Not only did we love working with Christina, our dog loved her and we all learned so much from the experience, She is beyond gifted and truly loves her work which shows through in her dedication and commitment. Separation anxiety is a very difficult thing to deal with in a dog and it can be exhausting and push you to the limit...but if you find someone as great as Christina and follow the plan - you will get your life back. I really cannot say enough great things about Christina and her work - meeting her changed our lives and gave us back our freedom. We can actually leave our apt now and not worry about our pup barking or panicking ...we never thought we would get here...but we did with the right help.

I adopted a heavily abused puppy who had a number of issues to work through. I went to 4 different trainers who all used the standard alpha method and they all failed miserably. One even told me that my dog needs a muzzle and a shock collar. I felt beaten down thought there was no hope and then someone recommended Christina and NY Clever K9. At first I was not a believer but over time she gave my dog and I the tools needed to be successful and my dog overcame all of his issues. He is a changed dog and I would recommend her to anyone having any issues with their dog no matter how severe. Seriously, look no further! Christina performs miracles and I can not tell you how many compliments I get on how well behaved my dog is. THANK YOU!

Christina is a hero! She came into our family home, where we were having the most difficulty with my pekingese - poodle mix, Mookie and started treatment immediately. She was able to quickly diagnose Mookies fear-agressive behavior and formulated a plan for us to relearn and move forward. While Christinas skill set certainly includes intellect and instinct, she is also kind, caring and understanding. She even brought another one of her clients into our house so that we could trigger Mookies fear of strangers. This client came for several weeks until Mookie was eating out of her hand! We have been so lucky to have Christina as our teacher and truly have a happier, friendlier, more peaceful dog because of her dedication to us. If you are serious about doing your homework and helping your dog interact with your family, Christina is the one.

Christina is just an amazing behaviorist, the session our rescue dog Cappy had was way beyond our expectations. Doing rescue work I have never seen anyone work so dramatically or quickly, she was able to not only keep Cappy from exhibiting any of the aggressive signs of fear of strangers that we began seeing in him but to engage him and bring out a playfulness we hadnt seen before (but suspected!) We have been seeing amazing changes in Cappy since she came -- he is much less fearful, more confident, engaged, more animated... happier! We think Christina is a terrific find.

After 51 years of marriage, 2 children, and 7 dogs, we adopted a 3 month old Leavitt Bulldog. Although loving and lovable, Larry soon showed very unpredictable behavior and difficulty interacting with other dogs. We kept him at home and avoided public places. Several months later, Larry was a strong athletic dog but unpredictable, lunging at other dogs and working himself into a frenzy when outside, making walks frightening and leaving us all feeling overwhelmed. Then we found Christina. After a simple and easy meeting with her followed by a hands on evaluation of Larry on the sidewalk, she quickly understood the behavioral problems and began educating and training us as well as Larry. Under Christina’s tutelage, Larry’s transformation to a fun companion was rapid, straightforward, and reliable. Walking him very quickly became a pleasure instead of something to dread each day. We are still amazed and thrilled and very grateful to her for her expertise and her palpable love for her students. I would just like others to know how our lives have been changed by her expertise and caring. Another huge thank you to Christina!

We first met Christina in 2002 we needed a behaviorist who understood the make up of a Keeshond. Well what a find! Comet was SO in love with her and we were truly amazed and knew we found a gem! Comet loved Christina so much that if I wanted to get him to come inside all Id have to do is pretend Christina was in the house and hed come running. Prior to find Christina (a Loooong deliberate search) we had your old World type trainer come in, Comet was not happy, we fired him on his second lesson AND to prove the difference, he was in the neighborhood one day a few years later and it produced stress in Comet, his fear was unreal! NEVER that with Christina, she truly changed his life and ours. We had her back for our Freya in 2004 and will again soon for Baldur. She is a dog whisperer!

As dog owner, we really love to spend our time with NY Clever Inc. We are harvesting newest techniques living with our dog in and outside of home. We are so amazed how NY Clever staff Levi widen his learning stuff just to bring my dog for his training. My dog learned too much from them, his like just a friend of mine that wherever I go his with him. Sitting, eating & even walking the city streets. It is fun for me to be with my dog. I highly recommend Levi, a skilled trainer. He trained my dog with eagerly attitude.

Christina is just wonderful.  After moving to nyc my dog Dakota became terrified of being left alone, even if I was just throwing out the garbage. It was horrible and heartbreaking  - she would be in a panic shaking and crying even if I was gone just a couple of minutes. Worse, when I left for work she would go to the bathroom though at 5 she was totally housebroken, left scratches on the door and I found out by getting 2 complaints from neighbors and a warning from my new landlord that she also howled for hours. I was panicked myself as I couldnt afford to move and had no idea how I was going to manage with her. I was under an extreme amount of pressure, was a hostage in my own apartment and on the verge of eviction.  Thank god a friend found Christina! From the first meeting she came up with a solution to calm my neighbors and landlord, calm Dakota (and me!) and a program to treat her separation anxiety. It took some time but I am actually able to leave her alone now happily playing with her puzzle toys and without me feeling guilty! We are so much happier and I honestly dont know what we would have done without Christina - there is help for separation anxiety! Dakota & I couldnt recommend her more.

Christina taught us how to properly train our new puppy to behave well & walk well on a leash. Its made a world of a difference!

My husband and I are forever grateful for meeting Christina. She helped both of our rescue dogs so much. One of our dogs was abused and as such is very fearful of pretty much everything, especially strangers. She would lunge and try to bite every person on the street during walks and had unfortunately bitten many of our friends when they came over to visit. Christina was a miracle-worker for Stella. Stella really liked Christina and slowly began to regain trust in people. It has been over two years and she hasnt bitten anyone since. We use all of the tools that Christina gave us to help rehabilitate her and couldnt be happier. Christina also helped our other dog, Shoko, with her guarding issues and her reactivity. I only wish that we still lived in the city so that we could continue seeing Christina!!

I sent her a text inquiring about dog services and I never received a reply back from her. Dont waste your time!!

I emailed them, and never got an answer 😕