Wolf's Lair K9

Working with Carlos has given us the confidence to successfully work with our 100lb XXL Bully. We cannot recommend Carlos enough! If you are at the point where you think there is no hope and you are crying every night telling yourself there is no way I can do this anymore.....please call Carlos.

When you rescue a dog that has emotional issues, reactivity, or aggression, it can be incredibly scary. It's hard when you love your dog so much but you also feel kind of stuck not knowing how to best handle their needs so that they feel safe and that you as their owner feel safe too. That's why I am so glad to have found Carlos for our two-year-old rescue Theo. Carlos truly understands these nuances—that there are some dogs who, in order to feel safe with their owners (and thus be safe to the world around them), need serious training beyond "sit and here's a treat."' And it is truly remarkable to see Carlos in action while he's in training mode. He's brought out the best in Theo and taught us how to be better trainers and dog parents, too. We've had about five sessions now, plus a ton of time training at home and I can say that Theo is really a changed dog. He's not only more calm, but he's happier. He trusts us more (and snuggles more!). Carlos' methods really truly work and we're just endlessly grateful. Whether you have a new puppy or you have a rescue and you're out of your comfort zone, Carlos will be able to help train you both into being a better team and family. It takes a lot of work in and out of sessions, but it worth it. I can't recommend him enough!

I highly recommend Carlos, Elly, and Wolf’s Lair K9! Their expertise and passion for dog training are unmatched. They truly care about building a strong bond between you and your dog while addressing behavioral challenges with patience and skill. Whether it's obedience, behavior modification, or advanced training, they deliver amazing results. Wolf’s Lair K9 is the go-to for anyone looking for professional and compassionate dog trainers!

5 stars, 10/10, 2 thumbs up, A+, all of the above. Could not recommend Wolf's Lair any higher. Carlos taught us everything we needed and then some to handle our dog, Hammer. We were clueless first time dog owners and had know idea how to parent or train our new puppy. From day one, Carlos gave us the guidance we needed and we are forever grateful. For our out of town wedding we trusted no one more than Wolf's Lair for overnight boarding of our dog as we knew he'd be in great hands. The team has my highest of recommendations.

We have had one session with Carlos for our 10 month old Retriever puppy. As soon as our pup turned 8 month, he forgot all his training and how to walk on a leash. He is a big boy and it was nearly impossible to take him for walk and that led to destructive behavior at home (chewing furniture, mouthing, zoomies). In one session with Carlos, our pup learned how to walk calmly on a leash and listens to commands. As soon as we put his training collar on him, he obeys commands. We had trick or treaters yesterday and I had him in a stay while I passed out candy and he didn't move an in, even though I know he LOVES kids. We have been going on 2-4 mile walks and I can listen to a podcast while I walk him instead of constantly stressing about handling him. My son's relationship with our pup has improved. He listens to my son's commands and has stopped being mouthy with him. We are so excited to continue work with Carlos and Elly! He is SOO much better than a group class or any other trainer I have worked with.

We brought home a red lab puppy and were ready to return her to the breeder at 16 weeks. She was barking constantly, jumping on people, pulling the leash while walking, counter-surfing…just terribly behaved. We tried training her ourselves and also tried another trainer who came to our house, but the progress was slow and not working well enough. I found Carlos at Wolfs Lair K9 after doing a bunch of research. We dropped Ruby off over Thanksgiving and picked her up 2 weeks later. I am not exaggerating when I say Ruby is a COMPLETELY different dog. She understands commands, barely barks, walks next to me with a leash, and knows she’s not supposed to jump on people (but is so excited to see new faces, so we allow it occasionally 😃). We feel like Ruby is part of our family now! Carlos gave Ruby the skills she needed to live a much more fulfilling dog life. Would 100% recommend Carlos to anyone with a naughty dog! Worth every penny.

I cannot say enough about Carlos and his training. We love him! We started bringing our wheaten terrier puppy to him at 12 weeks old after he was highly recommended by some of our neighbors and friends. He is passionate about what he does and loves dogs. You can see the mutual respect between him and the dogs he trains. People have commented to me at stores how well behaved my wheaten is and such a great listener for a puppy. Thanks to Carlos and his training philosophy! He also really works with the owner as well as the dog giving the right tools to work with at home which is key. Carlos always responds to emails in a timely manner and happy to answer any questions. His training facility is clean and safe. I highly recommend Carlos from Wolf’s Lair!!!

Our Shichon, Sophie, is my family’s first puppy, and we owe our success with her to Carlos’ training and guidance. I started working with Carlos about 10 months ago. Especially as a first-time dog owner, I wanted a well-trained dog, and she is well on her way thanks to Carlos. He has guided us through crate and potty training and in addition on how to walk our puppy, socializing and obedience training. We received compliments regularly from our neighbors about how well-behaved Sophie is for such a young dog. This is result is definitely from our training with Carlos. Carlos’ breadth of knowledge and experience in dog training is exceptional and very impressive. He has a natural instinct when it comes to dogs and is flexible on how to solve your pet issues in a way that will work best for your family. Our puppy responded positively to him right away and also loves to socialize with Carlos’ dogs (which are beautiful, sweet and exceptionally well trained). He is extremely patient and willing to answer any questions you may have and will help you work out any issues you are having with your pet. Carlos is kind, patient, professional and extremely personable. His training facility is gorgeous and very clean. His wife, Elly, is wonderful about any communication. She will schedule your appointments and will respond to your emails and questions quickly and professionally. I can’t say enough wonderful things about Carlos and Elly! If you have a new puppy or adopted a dog, I highly recommend Wolf’s Lair K9 and Carlos and Elly for all your training needs!

We have been working with Carlos and Elly at Wolf's Lair K9 for 7 months with our dog Rosie. A key criteria for me when selecting a service like this is passion for the work, Carlos and Elly are definitely driven and passionate about dog obiediance! Not only have they helped train our dog but more importantly they have given us the knowledge base(Human Training!) to be successful with our dog for life. I get a lot of compliments about our dogs behavior and I am always quick to give them the credit. We have taught our dog so much using the tools learned from Carlos its amazing!! I highly recommend Wolf's Lair K9 to everyone who has a puppy or dog related issues.

I am so happy I found this place. Birdie responded so well to our first private lesson. Carlos is beyond knowledgeable and so kind. I can't wait to utilize the techniques I learned on our walks. I look forward to our next session!

Carlos is fantastic & expert! His facility is clean, organized & perfect for training. We just adopted a pitbull from a shelter. He's about a year and half old, and even after 1 session we feel more confident we will have a well behaved dog! We are looking forward to working with Carlos so we can be assured our dog has the best training! So happy & grateful we found Carlos!

I can't say enough about Carlos, or as I refer to him, "The Dog Whisperer". During our first training session, Carlos walked in our house, greeted our 1 year old English Lab and immediate had a connection. He didn't chat for most of the lesson, but went right to sit/stays. He was able to get better results in one session than any of the other schools and private trainers we have used. Since then, our lab has done more home privates, day training at their beautiful facility and weekend boot camp. I highly recommend Wolfs Lair K9 to all our friends with dogs.

Carlos has a natural intuition with dogs of all sizes. He helped our little Bichon shake off his fear reactivity and become more confident at vet visits!

We have been working with Carlos and Elly for over a year. We have 2 toddler boys, and so our first adopted family dog was more than a handful and we needed a lot of help. Wolf's Lair helped us in taking a shelter dog and turning her into an amazing family member. They have taken many last minute requests from us for boarding and have opened their home to our dog. My dog always comes back in top-top shape and with better manners than when she left. Carlos and Elly are flexible, and will mold their training techniques to work with your family and the temperament of your dog. They have many approaches and can always find a solution, no matter how hard and tricky the behavior they are working to correct. Most importantly, they are amazing people to work with... honest, kind, and genuine

We have used Carlos for 2 of our boxers, the first dog was more laid back and just needed a little more discipline, my puppy who is 8 months and weighs about 60 lbs already, is a stubborn and tough guy, he needs A LOT of work, Carlos was able to show my puppy who was boss, and made sure he was the " bad guy" rather than us, so we can continue to have our special bond with our puppy, it wasn't easy for us or our dog but it certainly made sure our puply knew who was in control. We have a long road a head of us, but I am confident that with Carlos' help we will get there. He is worth every penny we pay to make sure our dog learns his manors. I would highly recommend Carlos with Wolf Lair K9

We took two extremes of the dog world to Wolf's Lair - a little nine year old Puggle for barking and other house manners issues and a two year old German Shepherd Dog we have had for just a couple of weeks with decent obedience and possible protection work capabilities. Carlos has been incredible. His knowledge and experience (he literally is a Master dog trainer) is evident in all he does. The Puggle is much improved and our GSD is now at a high level of obedience. Also, our GSD's protection work is so good due to his work with Carlos that we plan to get him titled in Mondio. The icing on the cake is that Carlos is super personable and will come to you if that's what you decide you want. Please go to Wolf's Lair if you want the best training around - there is no one better in Chicagoland!

Following our first session, Carlos twice cancelled scheduled appointments, promised us a free make up session, and then just disappeared! No response to multiple text messages. Not even a direct post to his Facebook page triggered a response! I don't understand what may be going on in his life, but I sure know this isn't professional.

Yesterday we went to their Northbrook facility for a training session. Let me say very clean, neat, and professional. It's a well cared for facility. It's nice going to the facility because he has all the equipment you may need for your session, including dogs! He uses dogs from the board and train during the session to give both parties some training time!

We became acquainted with Carlos and Elly through our sister-in-law who had learned about Wolf's Lair K9 from a friend in her neighborhood. Our challenge was to take a pretty defiant 10.5 year old Wheaten Terrier (who'd been through all kinds of training in his more youthful days) and a 1.5 year old Whoodle (Wheaten Terrier/ Poodle hybrid who had no formal training as a puppy), and get them ready for city living. The older dog is an alpha dog and not particularly interested in other dogs (he has been known to pick a fight or two). The younger is eager and friendly with most living creatures. In both cases, when you are walking a dog on a city sidewalk of a busy street, what's really critical is focus and control. Carlos and Elly helped us learn how to keep them focused, how to work with the older dog so that he isn't as likely to lash out (he meets dogs in the elevators of our building ALL THE TIME), and how to help the puppy be a little less exuberant while on a leash. Carlos and Elly were amazing with us and our pups. As is always the case, first the 'humans' need to be retrained. Once that happens, working with the pups is fairly easy. Their style is very warm but firm, and they are most interested in helping people help their dogs be more managed. We've learned over the years that structure and management make for a more calm dog. We just 'forget' sometimes and let them have more freedom. We've had a number of trainers over the years and none come close to helping us get the results that we achieved working with Carlos and Elly. We expect to be working with them for a long time because there is always something we can learn. 5+ stars and more!

Last February, my husband brought home a 7 month old German Shepherd to add to our already crazy house filled with 4 kids! Although I grew up with Dobermans, I was totally unprepared for our new addition, as our new GSD, Derby, proved to be smarter than I was! :) Luckily, friends of ours who also have a GSD, referred us to Carlos and we have been working with him ever since. We like to refer to Carlos as the "dog whisperer" to our friends, as he just has an incredible depth of knowledge and experience when it comes to handling dogs. Derby and her humans have benefited greatly from this knowledge! Although Derby still has some work to do, she is an amazingly well behaved pooch. Carlos works with our entire family to ensure that Derby is the kind of dog we want her to be. I would (and do!) highly recommend using Carlos and Wolf's Lair for any and all of your dog training needs.

Absolutely amazing!!! I can't say enoug great things about them! They brought our dog gus back like a whole new guy. Well the same guy but a new guy lol. We were hopeless but now he's so great and have Carlos and his beautiful wife to thank!

The Finke Family owes much gratitude to Carlos and Elizabeth. They have become our strength when we were all out of patience with Dozer. Dozer our beautiful English Mastiff had a ton of puppy in him. He was doing all the bad things puppies do and even adding new ones to the list. We were thrilled in just the first 15 minutes of Carlos and Elizabeth, we chatted and they got right to work. All of a sudden Dozer was listening. They gave us hope. I could say I owe 100% of dozer good behavior to them. I'm so proud to tell them a story of how good he was when we went to an event or when he didn't run out the door when I left it open. To find out they do day training was just an added bonus for us. Dozer is a dog that really needed to be worked a full day all day. So even now once a week or sometimes more Dozer needs an attitude adjustment or just a fun day of play and he comes back a well manner pile of love again. I love knowing he is being socialized and trained at the same time in a safe environment. They are not just trainers they are so much more than that. They care and have passion unlike any other trainers we have seen. I am a little happier as well; because there is less yelling "Dozer NO" every 10 minutes. They are professional and strong and such a dynamic team to watch and work with. We wouldn't know what do without them. They are my go to for all dog related questions....dozer is sick I call them, text them. I wouldn't trust anyone else with Dozer

these guys are the best. recommended by the northbrook police and everyone I spoke to after my dog came back traumatized by Alex brooks