A post I didn't want to make

"Since our hair match so well. The dog
started humping my head like a wild
beast." -- Kevin Salem

Some of you may remember that once, long ago, I wrote a blog post about being careful about who you went to training for. This all originally came about because I was looking for places to train in agility and was having a hard time finding someplace that seemed to fit my ideal (positive training, dogs and people having fun). On a lark, I googled the name of someone who had recently been disparaging positive trainers by calling them "cookie trainers" and writing long diatribes about how awful they were.

I really didn't expect to find much. But imagine my surprise when I discovered a world of horror surrounding Kevin Salem! I used him, along with Fred Hassen of Sit Means Sit, as primary examples of what to watch out for. While I don't care for Hassen's business at all, I do have to respect the fact that he made one comment to me (a disparaging, ridiculous one) and left it at that.

Salem, on the other hand, obviously doesn't have the confidence in his own business or training to let it go. Instead of laughing it off, it made him enraged. So enraged that he has been harassing me since October 2009. Many of the first messages he wrote to me were misogynstic in nature, alternately calling me a whore and telling me I need to get laid, insulting my imagined heritage, even my hair color. Here I present to you a few select quotes from the e-mails sent to me, and I apologize ahead of time for the crude content.

Would you sell your pussy at that hell call center for FREE? F*ck no, you wouldn't. Even your red pubic hair got some bills to pay.

Fast forward to three years from now: you are still suckling ... Oops. I misspelled that. my English teacher. c*ck at some call center.

That's what happens when you work ten jobs. No time for getting laid.

How sad. I hope you're not a chick with dick. That would totally ruin it for me and I will go away then for sure. (Shhhhhh. Don't tell nobody. All these dikes are or is it dyke? You would know. They are all jealous of my mullet. Mine is long, soft, shiny and manageable.) What do you use? VO5?

Is that what you wanted to hear? That's what happens when the carpet matches the drapes.

These are just a small smattering of the comments that have come my way since October 2009, when he launched his attacks against me.

Since then, he has threatened lawsuits (come to find out his "lawyer" is really just a barista), gone after my partner, and generally made a nuisance of himself. His latest endeavor is to disparage my dog training business.

What? you ask. What dog training business?

That's right, gentle readers, the dog training business I do not have. As anyone who reads my blog or who knows me in real life knows, I do not have a dog training business. I train my dog and occasionally help out others with their training. I have studied a lot about dog training but only in order to further the training of my own dog. I hope to foster dogs someday and will be able to put all of that study and work to good use, but at the moment there is really only one dog that I regularly train: Dahlia. And since she can't read fake reviews online by someone who claims to have boarded their dog (in an apartment that I do not live in anymore because I couldn't have dogs there), I'm not terribly worried. Hell, if I did board and train dogs in that apartment I would have had a lot more to worry about than some fake reviews by a jerk like Kevin Salem. I would have been fined $1000 and evicted.

But ultimately, I'm not in the business of dog training. It's a hobby for me. It's a hobby that I'm incredibly passionate about, but it's not a business and nor has it ever been.

So Kevin? You're wasting your time. You haven't fazed me one bit. The original post still stands.  Maybe I'll take this one down though if you stop your harassment.

Love the place you train

Last April, as some of you may recall, I signed up for a class I was hesitant about taking.  Something about it made me nervous and it wasn't until I walked in the door, felt the unfriendly atmosphere and saw the amount of leash pops and jerks on both choke chains and prongs that I realized why I felt so uncomfortable before even going to the class: The website listed no solid training philosophy.  They had the "teaching philosophy" page, as most do, but nothing on it gave a specific method.  Their basic training philosophy was this: 

Instructors will help you to understand your unique dog and how to communicate clearly with him. And they have many methods in their "toolboxes" for teaching certain skills and for help with problem-solving.

There was nothing specific there, no one belief.  I had hoped, when I signed up for the class, that their teaching would be rooted in the "positive first" methodology.  Instead, I discovered quite the opposite.  While no one told me to put a choke chain on my dog, it was clear I was to treat her as if she had one on: use leash pops, drag her into areas she was afraid to go.  Dahlia was nearly shut down on the first day of class.  I walked out of the second.

I will not lie.  Finding an awesome place to train is hard and it's especially hard for those who want to train using positive, force-free methods.  A quick search in any locality will find you many places whose training philosophies do not revolve around positive methods.  In a search of one city, I found the following training philosophies cited on various web pages:

1. Our concept of canine training as we define it, begins when the puppy is born. Training is not simply a set of exercises (loose leash walking, sit, stay, down, down-stay and so on) that a dog must learn when he has reached a certain age. Instead, we approach training holistically as an integrated process that spans the dog's whole lifetime and includes many different facets of the human-canine relationship.  

This says very little about how they actually train.  Holistic probably sounds good to most folks, but then I start noticing Cesar Millan terminology like "calm submissive pack member" and I'm quickly turned off to the whole thing.  This is going to be dominance-based training and it's going to be utter nonsense.  Next!

2. My philosophy is rooted in the fundamental idea that companion animals are social beings, and they need to be treated with respect and dignity. Specifically, dogs are pack animals and need to understand the hierarchy of their social group. Dogs aren’t little kids in fuzzy coats, and I believe that they understand best when communicated to in their own canine language.

Unfortunately, this "fundamental idea" is entirely wrong.  For an excellent article on this, check out Ian Dunbar's recent article, Let's Just be Humans Training Dogs.

3. Our natural approach uses positive encouragement to reinforce behaviors we find desirable. It associates commands with these behaviors to develop conditioned responses, so the dog truly understands what you are trying to communicate.  (Sounds good so far but then...) At the same time, a natural approach means understanding that dogs naturally make a lot of mistakes, lose their attention, or are sometimes downright defiant. In those cases, the use of correction or negative reinforcement is necessary, to discourage and stop or modify behaviors we find undesirable.

This makes the training not quite so positive all of a sudden, doesn't it?  Many people are taken in by the idea of a "natural approach" but frequently that begins and ends with the erroneous ideas of dominance, submission, and who's going to be the alpha or pack leader.  Sure enough, if you continue reading this site's philosophy, you ultimately end up with a discussion of "wolf pack theory."  Here's a hint to people who don't realize it: Dogs are not wolves.  And not only are they not wolves, but they're not pack animals.  Those who have studied feral dogs have discovered that they form loose social structures, but not a strict hierarchy (check out the work of Raymond Coppinger).

That leads me to the training philosophy of where I'm now training.  I began training a little while ago at a place whose main focus is agility, but whose training can also spill over into obedience or general training to be a good citizen.  I found the place through an awful lot of searching.  One thing's for sure, places based in positive training are hard to find!  It's much easier to find places like the ones listed above, who were among the first to come up in a Google search.  The new place I go to has the following training philosophy:


If the dog can have a positive experience, then you will have positive results.  The training approach is based on positive training methods,working to build desire and drive... 

They go on to state that they do not allow the use of training collars (choke chains, prongs, or shock collars) and that their entire philosophy is rooted in having fun.


Now doesn't that sound better?  It sure did for me, which was why I signed up with no hesitation.  On top of the lack of training collars, I have noticed a distinct lack of some terminology in this class.  The word "dominance" has never been used.  Not once.  Neither have the words alpha, submissive, or pack leader.  My dog is not out to take over the world and I like that!  During the classes, Dahlia has learned to play tug for fun and has, rather quickly, become an even more confident dog than she was before.  It is fun and that's the most important thing.  Beyond basic obedience (sit, stay, come, etc.), dog training is not ultimately necessary.  So why subject your dog to something stressful and painful simply because you want to do it?  I'm a firm believer in having fun with my dog and this class has been perfect.  


I love the place I train.  Do you love your training facility?  If not, maybe it's time to look elsewhere for someplace you will love.

On harassment, misogyny, and what is slander, really?

One might wonder what this particular post would have to do with dogs. After all, this is a blog devoted to dogs: training, rescue, transports, and other assorted things. The unfortunate reality is that this post is all too relevant to this blog.

Nearly a year ago I made a post with some information on how to go about finding a trainer, entitled "Be careful of who you go to training for." This was a serious post as it's a serious topic to me. There are many people out there claiming to be dog trainers. One does not need a degree or even certification to start up a dog training business. Some of them have studied hard, apprenticed, and constantly search for new ways to train. They read up on the latest learning studies and animal behavior studies and they're always looking for the most dog-friendly, the most humane ways to train. Some of them have done a little bit of training and while they may not bring harm to your dog, they're really rank beginners, trying to find their way in the world. These folks aren't bad, but you can do much better. And then there are the folks who will inflict great damage to your dogs. They use choke chains and hang the dogs until they submit. They use shock collars and shock your dog until it shuts down and does what you want it to do out of sheer fright.

And the other thing they do? They intimidate anyone who attempts to speak out against their cruel methods.

I have had a few responses to my original post. One told me my opinion doesn't "amount to a hill of beans" despite not knowing my background. That's fine. That person is allowed to have that opinion, though I might say the same thing about his opinion.

Another tracked me down on a different site to offer his opinion of my dog and her supposed lack of training, not showing any sort of understanding that the one and only video I had posted was of a dog that had just come into my life and had no training prior to me. Considering I'd had her for a month at the time and she was off leash, I would say her training was progressing quite well at the time.

Two have thanked me for steering them clear of a trainer they were considering. These were the people I was ultimately trying to reach and I'm thankful that I may have saved two dogs from a horrible experience.

And then there's the other response, that which the title speaks to. One person has been harassing me for nearly a year now. It began last October with extremely nasty e-mails full of insults. This included insulting my name, my supposed heritage, my hair colour, and my gender. It included calling me a whore and other names that I won't even repeat here as they are truly that offensive.

Eventually this person moved on to trying to get on my good side in order to get me to remove the post. Now, why would I want to do that? All the post did was point out reviews other people had made, reviews that should make anyone leery. They were used as an example of what one might find when searching for reviews of a trainer they are considering. When looking for reviews, you always expect to find a mix of negative and positive. It's rare for any place or any person to have 100% positive or 100% negative reviews. What this means is that, as a consumer, you need to weigh the pros and cons of the various reviews. We do this all the time when we go to buy something electronic. I have spent countless hours reading reviews, both positive and negative, before buying a computer or a camera. I decide if the negatives are something I can live with or not and how far the positives outweigh the negatives. When it comes to dog training, I'm even more careful because this one affects a life. If I buy a camera that turns out to be a piece of junk, it affects nothing except my wallet. If I take my dog to a cruel trainer, I can damage that dog psychologically for life.

When it comes to this particular person, the handful of negative reviews still up should be enough to make any sane person steer clear. Couple that with mentions of illegal activities and lost dogs and this would make me say "no thanks" to that person's training.

So now that begging has not worked, this person has moved onto harassment. He has tracked me down to the various places I am on the web. He has tracked down my real name, address and phone number. He even claims to have my social security number, surely something that would be of great concern to the FBI as identity theft is something they take quite seriously. He has written threatening notes to my partner about hiring a private detective and has threatened me with a slander lawsuit. Now, before even contemplating the content of the post, let's look carefully at what slander actually is.

"Slander is the oral communication of false statements that are harmful to a person's reputation."

So even if anyone believed these statements are false or harmful to a person's reputation, it cannot be slander as it is not oral.

What he really means to attempt to intimidate me with is libel.

"Libel is the written act of defamation, vs. slander, the oral act of defamation."

I think anyone would be hard-pressed to define what I said as libel. It is my opinion that I would avoid going to him for training. This opinion is based on reviews that I linked to, reviews that were not written by myself and therefore do not fall under the larger defamation umbrella.  He has attempted to intimidate the people writing those reviews in much the same way, but they are still up and on the internet. Why? Because they know that what they wrote falls under free speech. He has no case.

In other words, he's just a bully.

Lessons learned

It's hard to believe it's been over a week since I last posted. I vowed to be better, to write more, to keep up with things, but it doesn't always happen.

At any rate, this has been a rough week for me and most of it centers around a new training class I recently signed up for. Dahlia is a fantastic dog. In fact, if I were a normal pet owner I probably wouldn't ever have taken her to one obedience class. She came to us completely housetrained (in the almost two years we've had her she has had only a couple accidents in the house and both of those times she was ill). She didn't jump up on people, walked fairly well on the leash, was able to be left alone in the house with nothing untoward happening, was good with other dogs and people and kids and cats. Really, for the average pet owner, she's a dream.

But I'm not average. And I enjoy doing things with my dog. To date, I've been fairly careful about finding places that focus on positive training. Or, if they don't specifically focus on it, are open to working with Dahlia in a positive way.

I took classes at Petsmart (as much as some people "poo-poo" big box store training, we had a great experience there and they do promote positive training), a CGC class at the local SPCA (the instructor was mainly positive but willing to work with those who were less so), and then an Agility for Fun class at Blue Prints Dog Studio (100% positive). I hadn't done anything with Dahlia like that since last May and decided it was high time to get back involved.

I wanted a place that did real agility, maybe rally. I want to have fun with Dahlia and I think those classes tend to be more fun. I'm not so into the obedience side of things. It's too strict, too structured for me. It was difficult finding a local place that did agility and/or rally. I found some really nice looking ones 45 to 90 minutes away from the Syracuse area, but around town? Nothing.

Then I stumbled upon a local school, just a 10 minute drive away from me. I was somewhat hesitant as their website didn't list any sort of solid training philosophy. At least at the Syracuse Obedience and Training Club (SOTC) they straight up tell you they require "training collars" (read: choke chains), so I knew that was a place to avoid. This new school I found mentioned something about working with each individual dogs to meet their needs.

It left me feeling a little bit nervous, but I signed up anyway, hoping for the best.

Instead what I got was a class with three dogs on choke chains and prong collars, owned by three people who wouldn't even look at me much less speak to me. The first day in class was so utterly unwelcoming that I felt a little bit lost. Where was the camaraderie I had experienced in previous classes? Nowhere to be found. One of the dogs was severely reactive to other dogs, even from 20-30 feet away, and would bark and snap and snarl at any dog that so much as looked at him. Every time he would bark at another dog, the owner would yank him hard on his prong collar. Every single time. And every single time he would bark more and whine more until he finally would stop after a particularly hard yank.

No one stopped her.

The instructor approved and pointed out why it was "working."

I cringed but continued on, trying my best to ignore what this woman was doing with her dog. The other folks were continually jerking their dogs as well. And Dahlia? She was getting more stressed all the time, which worried me. A lot.

Then I discovered that the room itself was distressing to my dear, gentle, super soft and sensitive dog. There were mirrors across the back of the room and Dahlia was freaked out by them. When we would walk near them she would shy away from them, try to pull me away from them. The instructor told me to keep going and drag her along, that she was controlling me by acting fearful. Acting. Yes, my dog is acting fearful to dominate me. She didn't use the "d" word, but I think the concept was the same.

And the next time we walked around by the mirrors, she sort of forced me to walk closer to them and drag Dahlia past them.

This is a technique called "flooding." It's not something I agree with and I was uncomfortable with it. All week it bothered me that allowed her to manipulate me in such a way. The choke chains, the prongs, the flooding, the leash pops. It all culminated in me walking out of class the following week after only 10 minutes. I had begun the class that day with the honest intention of giving it a second chance. I tried to show Dahlia the mirrors weren't scary but I was unable to continue with my positive training as the woman with the reactive dog insisted on coming to the back of the room and standing on one side of it. I'm sure it was clear that I was trying to acclimate Dahlia to the mirrors, but she didn't seem to care. Ultimately, the instructor told me to drag Dahlia again and I stopped. I told her no. And then said I couldn't deal with a class that was so completely the opposite of all I stood for.

And I left.

It was the best decision of my life.

So what lesson did I learn? I learned that if a website doesn't state up front that they do positive training, then they probably don't. In the future, I'll be avoiding any place that I'm hesitant about. I'll go with my gut.

Lesson learned.

In the mean time, I found another place slightly outside of Syracuse, just about a 20 minute drive from my house, called It's All About the Dogs. They do all positive training, no chokes, prongs, or shock collars allowed. It's all about fun. It sounds like the perfect place! We start there in June.

Be careful of who you go to training for

Many people nowadays are out there looking for a trainer to help them with their dog. Either they have a "problem dog" (resourcing guarding, varying degrees of aggression, or something more mild like house training issues or jumping up on company and generally being unruly) or they adopted or bought a dog they want to learn how to train.

There are many trainers out there and sometimes the search can be quite daunting. Who do you trust? Who is going to give you a way to work with your dog that gels with what you want? And even more importantly, who is going to give you methods that work and that are humane and that help to build a bond with your dog?

Because this can be so overwhelming, many folks find someone who has advertised in their area and because their website "looks good" they jump at the opportunity to work with that person. But people must look closer. People must question these trainers before they even meet with them. Do not ever simply attend training with the first person you find online. Do some research, check out many people and training facilities, and find the one that is the most successful and most positive-based you can find.

Things to beware of:

1. Websites that do not give any real information on how they train dogs. Many of these sites show a "before" and "after" video and claim that the proof is in the video, but they do not show how they got from point A to point B (and if, indeed, they were the ones who even got the dog from one point to the next). I find, if you delve further into things by writing to the person, you find their methods are often aversive.

2.  Any site that says they always use a certain training collar. This includes choke chains, prong collars, and shock collars. All are aversive techniques that cause pain.  Studies have recently shown that using aggressive training techniques results in more aggression. You cannot treat aggression with aggression and end up with a solid, balanced, happy dog. And for dogs who have more milder problems, who you're trying to teach sit, stay, and come, these collars can create more problems, especially if you have a soft dog who shuts down at the first sign of pain.

3.  Any site that makes use of an aversive tool without ever using any positive methods first.  Take Fred Hassen and his "Sit Means Sit" site. He promotes and solely uses shock collars in training dogs, even on small puppies.  There are no alternatives, there is no "this is a last resort" message.  This is the very first thing trainers in the "Sit Means Sit" franchise go to.  A trainer that promotes shock collars without even considering other, more humane methods, shows a complete lack of understanding of psychology, canine behavior, and (in my personal opinion) a lack of humane treatment of animals. Is this really the kind of place you want to take your dog?

4. If you are comfortable using an aversive method, be wary of how that method is being used.  While I am not a supporter of shock collar usage to train a dog, there is a right way and a wrong way to use this tool.  Putting one on an untrained dog and shocking it until it somehow manages to offer the behavior you want is not the correct way to use a punishment-based tool, yet this is how the "Sit Means Sit" franchise uses it.  Others use this same method with choke chains and prong collars.
Always do your research. I cannot emphasize this enough. You find a website. All looks good. But then you spend a little time finding reviews from people who have experienced that person's training or seen that person's demo and you find out that all is not as it seems.

Take Sit Means Sit again. A little searching on some dog forums found a rather lengthy description from a dog trainer who attended one of his demos.  Unfortunately the original has been removed, but the description consisted of Hassen putting dogs (and even a wolf hybrid) up on a high table and parading them back and forth across it shocking them until they urinated and defecated out of fear.  No matter how many positive reviews are out there for his franchise, something like that would make me leery enough to avoid the place.  A place where something like this might happen, or did happen, is not a place I would trust with my dog.



Let's examine another trainer, Kevin Salem (sometimes written as Kawain, Salim, or any combination thereof) of "Real Life Dog Training." His website (www.dogsecrets.com) touts his great abilities (he's the dog "prodigy," one step up from Cesar Millan of "dog whisperer" fame) and a book (that is still yet to be published) as the be-all end-all of dog training.  At first glance, the website seems good, if a bit on the egotistical side.  But a closer look shows multiple pages disparaging anyone who uses positive training methods such as clicker training or rewarding with "cookies."  Salem uses a method he calls "diverse training," which sounds like a good idea (diversity is always an excellent thing, isn't it?), but the site gives you little information on what is diverse about is (the site is, after all, called "dog secrets").   Instead he offers up some videos of himself "training" dogs.  The videos feature Salem with the untrained dog who he is dragging around by its collar, often quite roughly.  Then, quite suddenly, the scene changes and it's Salem walking the now well-behaved dog.  What you don't see is what worries me: How did the dog get from point A to point B?  He doesn't want to reveal his "secrets" of course, so it's up to you to take your dog to him to find out just what those secrets are.

Unfortunately, to the laymen, these dogs in the "after" portion of the video look calm and well-behaved but a close look at their body language shows otherwise (just as they do in the "after" videos of Hassen and on Cesar Millan's TV show). A fearful dog is not a trained dog. Like Fred of Sit Means Sit, he also touts quick results for owners who have little time to train their dog.. Here's a hint: doing anything correctly takes time; you cannot teach your child to read in an hour and neither can you train your dog in such a short period of time.


So now you've looked at his site.  You think that things look pretty good.  Diversity is a plus.  The dogs look trained.  He has great "customer testimonials."  This is the point at which you need to take any website with a grain of salt.  No trainer is going to put negative reviews on their site.  No trainer is going to say anything less than positive about him/herself.  So you need to look further.

For that, I turn to looking for reviews of a particular trainer.  A quick google search turned up reviews in various places.  Yelp.com lists 9 reviews of "Real Life Dog Training."  Of them, 6 are positive.  So just by going by sheer number, that sounds not so bad.  But it's the content of the bad reviews that might make one leery.


Review #1 of "Real Life Dog Training"

Review #2 of "Real Life Dog Training"

Along with not training their dogs, these people say he's returned them filthy, aggressive, and even injured.  One person mentions a review that has since been removed because both she and this other person have been threatened with lawsuits for stating their experiences.

A continued google search brings up a couple news articles:

Illegal Dog Training Kennel Has Moved  This would be the explanation for all the personal and business name changes.

Amazingly Training Boarding and Training Academy.  Yes, that's right.  Another name for the same business.  If a business consistently changes its name to avoid bad reviews, there's probably something wrong with it.

This gives you the full picture.  You get the websites, the positive reviews, and the negative reviews.  It's up to each individual to weigh the pros and cons and decide if Sit Means Sit or Real Life Dog Training are places they want to take their dog.

I would also add that this person has found this post and has been harassing me for well over a year in order to get it removed.  He's taken to writing fake reports about the dog training business I do not have, paid money to dig me up on the internet, and written nasty misogynstic messages to me since September 2009.  I have given anyone who reads this the opportunity to see the good reviews and the bad.  They're out there for anyone to find.  Would you really want to board your dog with someone who harasses others for reviews they didn't even write?  Please note that none of the reviews above are mine.  I simply looked up his name and found them all.  A google search brought me there.  If they were untrue, do you think he would be so desperate to get this post removed?  Think about it.

After checking out Sit Means Sit and DogSecrets.com, reading their claims about themselves and their customer testimonials, after seeing reviews both positive and negative, I can honestly say the cons far outweigh the pros with both of these places.  I would not be taking my dog there.

Again, I reiterate. When looking for a dog trainer, do your research.

1. Look for reviews of that particular trainer or training facility.

2. Talk to the trainers and find out their philosophy about dog training and how they go about training. Also find out about their experiences with dogs similar to yours. Many trainers deal with basic obedience issues (sit, stay, come), unruly behavior (jumping on guests, puppy mouthing, house training issues), and some mild aggression (resource guarding), but those who have dealt with true aggression are few and far between. If your dog is truly aggressive (human, child, or dog aggressive), you will want to first see a vet to rule out medical issues and then, if there are no medical problems, find a good behaviorist who knows what to do to rehabilitate an aggressive dog.

3. Talk to people who have gone to this person for training. A good trainer will often find ways to connect you with people who are willing to tell you about their experiences. You can also often find people on your local Craigslist or other sites devoted to dogs and dog training who will share an honest opinion of the trainer.

4. Ask the trainer if you can come observe their class or a training session. Any good trainer will be happy for you to come and watch a class (sans dog) to see if they are someone you want to work with. If a trainer refuses, I would personally worry about why. I have once in my life gone against this and ended up paying for a class I walked out of due to their cruel training methods.

5. And mostly, trust your gut. If something feels off, it probably is. If you feel uncomfortable, then they are not the right trainer or training facility for you. Remember, this is your dog and you are the one who has vowed to protect him and keep him safe. Be careful!

Good luck in your search for a good solid dog trainer. There are some fantastic ones out there.

A good place to start might be the International Positive Dog Training Association, which provides lists of positive dog trainers in many areas.

5/14/19: Edited to add
I see today that because of the latest fiasco with Kevin Salem either losing or killing someone's dog, that hits on my post have gone up something like 5200%. Welcome all!

I should have done this a long time ago, but I want to share a couple more posts I made that reference his and his reaction to this post. After I made this, Kevin Salem spent some 3 years sending me harassing e-mails. He threatened me with lawyers and fake court documents, even going so far as to harass my husband through Facebook and trying to get my home address and phone number from the domain that hosts this blog (lucky for me, they sent ME that information and I was allowed to ignore it).

These posts reference the harassment I experienced at his hands:

On harassment, misogyny, and what is slander, really?

A post I didn't want to make 

I'm happy to discuss any of this with anyone! I have never met this man face-to-face, but the online harassment went on for far too long and he took things too far. I only wish that more people would stay far away from him and his "training school."