Lakota's Legacy  Reviews 8

Gina is experienced, knowledgable, and supportive rewards-based dog trainer. We appreciate her deep understanding of dog behavior and the tools she has given us to work with our dog who responded poorly to e-collar training. She responds quickly and timely to email communication, offers virtual consultations and in-home training sessions, meeting the needs of busy households. She is an animal-first trainer, but absolutely includes the whole family’s needs in training and learning. Highly recommend.

Toby (1 year old mixed breed velociraptor) and I have been working with Gina on our biggest challenge-keeping Toby from chasing the cats. Progress has been real, even if it hasn't always been smooth. We had to take a break from formal training, but Gina had given us enough to work with that we didn't lose ground. We kept our skills up and we've had some flashes of brilliance- moments where I can call him off or redirect him before the chase is on. What I love most is that Gina doesn't just give you tricks to manage the problem. She teaches you how to actually work with your dog using skills that carry over into everything else in daily life. If you're thinking about Lakota's Legacy, do it. Gina knows her stuff.

Working with Gina at Lakota’s Legacy was such a wonderful experience for both me and my dog, June. When we first got June as a young puppy from a farm, she had exactly the kind of energy you’d expect. Lots of enthusiasm, very few boundaries, and she was having a hard time adjusting to life in a human world. I felt overwhelmed and unsure how to best support her.

Over the course of several months, Gina helped us tremendously. She gave me the tools to better understand June, communicate more clearly with her, and help her regulate her energy in a positive way. June is now able to calm down much more easily, and our relationship is stronger because of the work we did together.

June has always been a great dog, Gina just helped bring that out in her! I’m so grateful for her guidance and would absolutely recommend Lakota’s Legacy to anyone looking for thoughtful, effective, and compassionate training.

I can’t say enough wonderful things about Gigi. From the very beginning, it was clear that her approach is centered on building confidence and trust rather than using intimidation or fear-based methods—and that truly makes all the difference.
She is deeply committed to her craft, consistently pursuing continuing education and maintaining up-to-date training certifications. It’s obvious that this isn’t just a job for her—it’s a passion. She brings so much care, knowledge, and dedication into every session.
Her compassion, patience, and generosity create such a supportive environment, not just for the dogs but for their owners. You can genuinely feel how much she cares. The best compliment I could give her is to refer friends and family to her service when needed. Everyone was as happy and satisfied as we were.
If you’re looking for someone who is not only highly skilled but also kind, understanding, and truly invested in your dog’s success, I wholeheartedly recommend her.

I recommend Gina’s Lakota Legacy program to those puppy owners who need to help their puppy adjust to a new home with existing pets.

We have a French Bulldog puppy who wants to play too rough with one of our two cats. She wants to rough house with the cat the way she did with her litter mate sister. We needed to break the “see cat, attack cat” link. Gina’s approach is helping us provide a distraction with reward immediately after the “see cat” to interrupt and prevent the “attack cat”. Our puppy is beginning to ignore the cat which is the behavior we desired.

Her presentation provides the how and why to much of the behavior we see in our dogs. She teaches how the dog processes the world around them. That is helping us teach our puppy to make the desired choice to see the cat, decide it’s not important, and choose to ignore. But it takes time for the dog to learn to cognitively make the desired choices. It’s totally different than teaching a trick like sit or stay.

Gina is amazing and really breaks down and gets you set up for success by forming foundations versus just teaching you commands.

Gina was a great help when I had behavioral issues with my Pit Bull. She listened and understood what was going on with my dog and gave great advice on how to handle her to stop the unwanted behavior. I highly recommend Lakota's Legacy.

Gina forever changed us and our relationship with our dog. As first-time pet owners, we were overwhelmed with everything needed to help our rescue dog live his best life and help us be the best family for him. Gina helped us understand our dog – how he looks aggressive and reactive, but is actually very fearful. From the first time we spoke, it was obvious that Gina cares deeply about dogs and is highly educated on how their brains work and what they need. She willingly shared her hard-won knowledge with us, patiently answering every question, even ones she’d already answered. We had a lot of issues to work through, but she helped us gradually build up his skills, layer by layer. Building our dog’s skills has been a journey (that we are still on), but it is clear our dog has internalized the skills on a deep level. The skills we’ve learned with Gina are part of his daily routine and life. For every skill we worked on, Gina offered multiple ways to build it. After every session, she sent us detailed emails summarizing what we did and providing helpful links and information. She demonstrated the skills in person and provided videos so we could review. She us took videos of us working with our dog and sent them to us, so we could see what we did well and where we could improve. While she always had a plan, at each session, she quickly figured out where our dog was and adapted the training to meet his needs while still teaching him valuable skills. She worked with us to build up his confidence, but in the process she empowered us as pet owners and built our confidence as well. Thanks to Gina we are better able to read our dog’s body language and meet his needs, all of which has forged a deep bond and understanding between us. We are so incredibly thankful and grateful that we met and had the privilege of working with Gina. We’re looking forward to continuing our relationship with her after our move and for as long as we and our dog need her support.