Your dog can be the dog of your dreams.

Our take: The benefit of a private lesson is to have someone closely hold your hand throughout the training. Whether you couldn’t make a certain week’s class, need additional help with an aspect of handling, or want to work on something outside the scope of the curriculum, we offer private lessons to our group class students.

Our take: Our curriculum involves an orientation, 8 group lessons, and graduation. At the end, over 80% of students are able to obtain both their Canine Good Citizen certificate and pass the AKC Novice Obedience requirements. Just over 2 months of work and you’ll get every tool you’ll need to develop a complete dog. Training a dog doesn’t happen overnight. It is a process that requires consistency and time, but life’s about refining your trained dog, not going to class forever.

Our take: Training facilities provide shelter from the elements and a fixed location to find class every week. However, they have a TERRIBLE drawback: Because dogs learn through very acute and specific patterns, they learn that they are held to the standard more consistently when you’re at the training facility. When class ends and the instructor says, “Ok, now go do your homework at a pet store!” it doesn’t go quite as smoothly! Handling that bout of resistance often dissuades you from “public lessons”. But when do you need this training to be reliable? IN PUBLIC. So we train in public. We train at parks and stores that allow us. We train near railroads, playgrounds, dog parks, ducks, geese, and squirrels. You will have me holding your hand every step of the way while you battle the real world distractions you’ll actually have to deal with. Your dog won’t have a pattern to put together: he’ll learn that obedience is a lifestyle, not a series of tricks.

Our take: As noted, you’ll have all the tools you’ll need by the end of our curriculum. There is nothing more you’d ever need to create a stable, calm, reliable companion, even when off-leash. But we recognize that your training doesn’t end. It requires an additional two to four months before everything becomes rock solid for you and for your dog. For those that want a class format to keep them structured throughout those months and beyond, we offer Advanced and Graduate Class opportunities to help you practice and hone all you’ve learned, as well as an option to retake the core-course again, free of charge.

Our take: Whether it’s trauma, timidity, a feral dog, or aggression, we work with it all. No one is ever “failed”. The only way we don’t solve your issues is if you quit. No matter how bad your dog is, we’ve seen worse and fixed it. Our behavior modification is based on the way dogs naturally communicate with each other and gets to the core of the issue. The first step is to come to a group orientation. There are no dogs present at these orientations and you’ll get homework that will dramatically increase your chance of success in training your dog. You’ll work those exercises at home and then bring your dog to our group class, which is handled in a controlled and safe fashion. You can’t fix “dog aggression” unless you put your dog around other dogs and train their behavior. You can’t address “people aggression” training your dog in your living room or backyard. If further work is needed, we offer private lessons at a discounted rate to our group class students where we can spend more time on any given issue outside of regular class times.