We first met Giovanni Beristain when he was recommended as a dog trainer from our new Lhasa Apso puppy, Charlie. Beth wanted to get Charlie some basic obedience training – sit, stay, heal, down, come. So she signed up for private classes with Seprocan. The training was held for an hour a day, five days a week for a month. The training was as much for Beth and for Charlie. As Giovanni explained, the owner has to be the alpha male so that the dog will respect him or her and follow their commands.
I went on one of the training days to observe, take pictures and spend some time hearing about Giovanni, his background and training philosophy. It turns out that Giovanni grew up in a family in Mexico City that is one of the biggest dog training schools in the country – training guard dogs as well as pets. So while he was a language major in college this was his passion. His understanding of classical conditioning (Pavlov) and his ability to implement it was absolutely amazing. He only uses rewards – no punishments. The training involves having the dog around other dogs, toys and distractions and making sure that the pet can focus only on his or her owner’s commands and not everything else that is going on. Giovanni also has taken a few of our friend’s dogs that were uncontrollable and kept them for a week or two for intense training without the owner – always with success. Giovanni is the only Certified Dog Trainer in Cabo, by: United States Department of State (DoS) USCDA and the Asociación Táctica de Operadores Latinoamericanos (ATOLA).
We knew that Giovanni had been looking for a permanent location for Seprocan. Last October he found an old school that was perfect for conversion into a formal dog training, daycare and boarding facility. Located on the main highway coming from the airport to San Jose del Cabo and across the street from the large fabric store – Modatelas – on the corner across from another furniture store. This school has a large open training area with obstacles that can be used in training the dogs. There are three separate areas so that large dogs and small dogs can be separated for daycare. The back area is for the dogs to relax and also has a shower and small pool where they can be bathed. Giovanni is in the process of building an updated kennel space in one of the rooms. In the front training area, multiple dogs can be trained at a time, in the presence of other dogs, forcing them to pay attention to the owner and the trainer.
In the past, we have also boarded Charlie with Giovanni and as he knows that Beth will worry, regular videos and photos of Charlie playing are sent to her. We are about to go to Denver to help our daughter move for two weeks and Charlie will stay at The Dog School. We have taken him there for daycare to get used to the place and the people before we leave. We are going to have him do some refresher training while we are gone too.
So, if you are looking for a dog trainer for a good pet or an uncontrollable animal, take it from us and at least a dozen of our friends who have used Giovanni, The Dog School is the only place to do so. For daycare, they will even pick up your dogs and bring them back to you at the end of the day.
For more information on The Dog School and Seprocan visit their website at https://www.thedogschool.com.mx/ or visit them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/seprocanloscabos on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thedogschool_mx/ or Giovanni’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/giovanni.beristain
