Welcome to the Bark Side of the Crescent City!

I provide force free and positive reinforcement dog training. Every dog is unique and I want to help you understand your dog’s behaviors and needs.

My goal is to improve both you and your dog’s quality of life.

Click here to learn more about my background and my training methods!

Belle’s Bark’n Behaviors

Testimonials

Sonja is amazing with people and with pets!!! She helped my partner and I merge households and pets when we weren't sure we could all live together happily. Now (after just a few short months) the dogs give each other kisses and love and listen too both parents!!!! We're taking our fur kiddos on their first ever family camping trip this weekend thanks to the skills we all learned!! I really cannot express my gratitude enough.

Zoey P.
Sonja is such a great and loving trainer. She helped my dog with her leash aggression and overall anxiety around other dogs. We did a board and train and my fur baby couldn't have been in better hands. She made a very in depth training plan to follow up with and was very thorough, helpful and communicative through the entire process. 15/10. I highly recommend!

Josh E.
Working with Sonja was an absolute game changer! I have a reactive rescue and I felt overwhelmed by the prospect of training. Sonja gave both of us the tools we needed to succeed. Beau is a changed dog!!

Tess M.
Sonja is wonderful! I am a first time dog owner and want to do right by my dog, Lala. Sonja was very sweet and patient with me and my dog. She has a way of teaching that was very easy for me to absorb and to apply to help Lala. Sonja helped me walk Lala and helped me with some concerns I had. She came into my home and watched Lala and my interactions. She showed me ways to help my dog work through some of her fears with positive reinforcement. It was lovely! She gave me some homework and was super sweet and checked on our progress. Lala is doing better than ever! Sonja, thank you for your help, compassion, and professionalism. I highly recommend her, she is the real deal!

T.T.
Thank you so much for all of the wonderful work that Ms. Sonja did in coming out and meeting with us and our new puppy Koko. Ms. Sonja spent an hour or so just observing the interaction between Koko and us, and then gave insightful suggestions on how we might improve our interactions. Ms. Sonja also followed up with a detailed accurate professional report on the session. We have implemented all of the suggestions, and our puppy issues are continuing to improve. We would strongly suggest your company based on our interactions and results. Ms. Sonja is truly a "Dog Whisperer". We will call on you all again if we have any other issues. Thank you.

Bill C.
Sonja is the most trusted, caring, knowledgeable dog-walker I have ever worked with. My dog has some special needs and there are very few people I would feel comfortable leaving her with--Sonja is at the top of that list. She is reliable, a great communicator, and brilliant in her training with only positive reinforcement, and it shows: my dog absolutely adores Sonja! As an anxious dog dad, I feel at ease knowing my dog is in good hands--and at the end of the day, I can see her marked improvements with Sonja's gentle touch and expertise. I truly can't recommend her highly enough.

Dorian R.
Sonja has worked with my foster dog and done wonders. He was considered “not dog-friendly” and thanks to Sonja’s work he is able to easily be around other dogs, even as they are all getting treats! She’s also improved his leash manners and reactivity to squirrels on walks.Sonja is responsive and knows how to meet the dog and human where they are at and patiently get them where they need to be. Me and Buddy love her!

Megan F.
Sonja is an amazing dog trainer. Thanks to Sonja’s positive training, our once shy and fearful puppy is a confident dog that loves so many other people and animal friends. Sonja has given my wife and I the tools to reassure and support our dog and make her feel safe in new environments. We are completely at ease when we are out of town and board with Sonja! We and our dog are so lucky to have such a supportive and kind trainer.

Stephen D.
Met with Sonja from Belles’s Bark’n Behaviors last week and there are not enough stars to give a proper rating. Got a 10 week old puppy and wanted to make sure I taught her good manners. Sonja came over, gave my puppy love and me as well. Taught me some early training tips and was very informative and put my mind at ease. I can’t wait to fine tune my little babies skills and work with her again. Would recommend to any dog owner new or old 🥰

Stephanie L.
Sonja has been amazing to work with since moment one! My wonderful vet recommended Belle’s Bark’n Behaviors and I am so glad she did. We adopted a new little rescue pup into our family about 6 months ago and needed to work on him picking up better doggie social cues from his older brother and also some boundary and recall training. Sonja walked in and it was like magic right away! There’s something so impressive watching a true pro work with your pups - it gives them an immediate confidence boost, their family an opportunity to see that behavior modification is indeed possible, and we learned so much from her! She makes sure to walk through the process with you in granular detail (the way pups need it) to set everyone up for success, including the humans. She implements training methods that are EASY so you don’t always need to have bags and gadgets on you 100% of the time to positively reinforce. Her follow-up training plan and homework for us were super thorough and detailed, and she even sent lots of enrichment ideas that are free or low-cost in addition to the toys you could purchase to supplement the training you do at home. Her rates are super reasonable (especially for the time spent with us), she was so flexible in scheduling our first appointment, and she spent a good amount of time here to speak with us, observe the pups, and walk us through manageable strategies. The pups are learning a lot in our continued work with them and I look forward to Sonja coming back soon to see how everyone is doing and even give us more things to work on!

Sacha P.
We had a fantastic experience with Sonja! She was kind, flexible and extremely knowledgeable. She was able to work with us in re-training two pups after their owner had a hospital stay, and all of her strategies/recommendations were extremely helpful and took into consideration the owner’s mobility challenges. Can’t recommend enough!

R.C.
Worth every penny. I appreciated that sh focused on training us to be better trainers for our dog and his specific personality; not just training a dog. It was personalized to our and his (dog) needs

Jeremy A.