Family Dog

13/10 Good-est Boys and Girls

Stop fighting your dog. I said it. Don’t spend all your time fighting against who your dog is. That doesn’t mean you have to give up on a well behaved dog. Conveniently for us, dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years to want to work with us. Sometimes they just need help learning how. Our family dog class is designed to help you reach that goal of a well mannered best friend.

Like our other courses we utilize up to date positive reinforcement based techniques that take a lot of inspiration from the force free training movement. This course covers training basics to help you improve your communication with your dog and build engagement even when life gets exciting. More specifically we’ll cover loose leash walking, recall, polite greetings and impulse control exercises. We also throw in a variety of life skills like mat training, chin rests and more.

This course is designed for any dog over 6mo. It is the sequel course to our puppy pre-k but you need not have completed that course to enroll. It is open to all experience levels and instructors will adjust the difficulty of exercises to meet your dog’s level.

At this time we cannot accommodate reactive dogs in this course (please see our Big Feelings Anonymous course). If you’re unsure if your dog can work in a group class please reach out. An instructor will be available to assess your dog and help you find the right placement. It may be necessary to do private lessons to help prepare your dog to succeed in a group class setting. If you arrive in class and your dog surprises you, no big deal. We’ll chat with you and find a solution that does work for your dog.

The fun doesn’t end: Pop Up Training!

Finishing an 8 week course doesn’t mean the training fun needs to end. Maybe you want to practice with other dogs. Maybe you need a little extra help in that one area of your training. Maybe you just want an excuse to get out and train your dog and see other dog people. Keep an eye on our calendar for pop up training events and short courses. We’ll use these to help you fine tune your training in the real world.

The fun doesn’t end: Workshops

Workshops and short courses are a nice compromise between an generalized 8 week courses and our pop-ups. These events will be one longer session or split across 3-4 weeks and focus on common problem areas in training, like loose leash walking and recall, but also special interest areas, like competition retrieves, agility jump mechanics, reinforcement strategies etc.