NORTH RIDGEVILLE, Ohio — Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, dog adoptions have been on the rise — and people have had more time to be at home with their new pets. Now that many workplaces are reopening, the reality of the need for dog training has come into play.

“It’s been real crazy once we opened back up again. People started coming in wanting to train their dogs. We saw a lot of problems adopting dogs because (people) were bored and stuck at home and they went out an adopted a dog, which is great, but then they realize the dog needs training so they started coming to u," said Chuck Stella.

Stella has been the owner of Elite K-911 in North Ridgeville for the past 14 years. He said puppies and adult dogs were in demand during early days of the pandemic — and now those pets, introduced to new homes, need training. That's especially true as people return to work and pets are missing their masters after months of being together.

“We are instructing the owners to let them have independent processing time from them, engage in structured activities where there is a lot of structure and guidance, and follow through so (there’s) confidence building and now that we are able to getting your dogs out (on) structured walks more,” said Heather Lange, a dog trainer at Elite.

While Don Donaldson of Elyria has had Panzer for a while, his story about the value of having a well-trained canine, in this case one with a major physical challenge offers encouragement to new adoptive dog parents.

“He lost his eyes to glaucoma. They gave me a choice to either put him to sleep or having his eyes removed,” Donaldson said. “And Chuck taught me how to get him to cooperate and I trained him according to what he said to do.

“After the surgery was over, if we worked with him he would be normal just like before, and I doubted it at first, but the more we worked with him he’d chase a tennis ball through the grass like a dog that has eyes and he has his own Facebook page.”