Press

A lot of people come up to me and want to be dog trainers. You can not just love dogs to be a trainer; you need to be dedicated to them. Not just one, because it’s easy to get won over by an individual dog. You need to love the species.

It’s like every dog in the world shares one heart, and your job is to make sure that heart is as healthy as possible.

-Francis Metcalf

What’s a hound without a hearth?” Metcalf asks, gesturing to the maplewood wet bar and the cast iron wood stove. “St. Roch’s fulfills the dream and fantasy of having a dog. We didn’t want it to be like a hospital waiting room.”

Design and decor aside, the instructor himself, built like a Victorian weight lifter and mustached accordingly, is not without flair. During class, to the tune of a Django Reinhardt recording, Metcalf stalks the training yard in tiger-striped cowboy boots, periodically shaking pom-poms, tooting a hand horn or rolling out “the German Wheel of Death” – an oversize hamster wheel used for advanced routines.

Francis is someone I’ve known for nearly 20 years now and I can honestly say he is a uniquely gifted man who always advocates for dogs. They love him. Adore him. Can’t get enough. When Francis walks into the room my dogs act like it’s Christmas morning; and it is, because he always gives them the gift of his full attention and works to make every interaction with dogs as positive fun as possible. I’ve not met anyone quite like him in dogs.

– Kelly Gorman Dunbar