Puppy Academy

Let’s face it puppies are super adorable but they can be hard! Especially those first couple weeks between the sharp teeth, little bladders, chewing everything and not sleeping through the night! But you’re in luck because I LOVE working with puppies and I am now offering a board & train program for our pups! The program is designed for new puppy owners who would like to get a head start training a puppy before it goes home. Instead of your puppy going home at 8 weeks we will keep him or her until 12 weeks. I only do 1 or 2 pups per litter depending on my schedule so this must be booked in advance and a deposit will be required. The puppy will be in the house with my family and will be learning the ropes of living with humans verses living with their littermates! They’ll also be around several of our mature well-mannered adult dogs who will help shape some of their behavior as well. I am stickler about making sure puppies get off to a good start! With our starter training it will be a much more pleasant transition for the puppy and for your whole family and you can finish training at home using the foundation that we have built for you.

 Things we will work on:

  • Recall

  • Sit & Down

  • Stay

  • Touch

  • House training

  • Place

  • Crate training & learning to be alone (puppy will sleep through the night)

  • Harness introduction & walking nicely on leash

  • Following (pup learns to follow you on or off harness)

  • Manding (sitting politely with focus on owner)

  • Mouthing & Jumping up

  • Handling exercises (mouth, ears, feet, tail, etc.) & baths

  • Thresholds (being polite at doors, crates, feeding time, etc.)

  • Car rides

  • Continued socialization with other animals, people, etc. in a positive way!

I will also take the puppy on a minimum of 2 outings where I will focus on preventative counterconditioning. By this, I mean that I will take advantage of every first encounter, making it a positive one! Counterconditioning at every opportune moment sets the pups up for confidence and success. I have a keen understanding for how to build positive experiences for puppies to everyday stimuli and stimuli that dogs sometimes find scary.

When you pick up your puppy we will have a transfer training session and I’ll send home some instructions on keeping up the pups training! This will all be done with positive reinforcement & marker training (think clicker training but with a verbal marker instead). I am certified dog trainer with a Certificate in Training & Counseling (CTC) credential from the renowned Academy for Dog Trainers and of course I have raised MANY puppies of my own over the years :)

The fee for our puppy training program is $2,500 and your puppy will be sent home with their own harness/leash and we will get their second vaccine taken care of.

I can take slightly older puppies as well so if your puppy has already been with you a couple weeks and you’re interested in them coming back to me for training let me know!

Note:  While with us your puppy will have a conceptual understanding and a great head start on all the skills listed above. However, every puppy is unique and all puppies have a short attention span just like toddlers! For instance, your puppy will learn basic potty training while with us, but exposure to a new home with new surfaces may create initial confusion for the puppy, so you’ll have to reinforce what he has learned at our home and maybe get additional support from a local trainer once you get home and are ready to build on. Our goal is that your puppy will understand the concepts and the meaning of commands so that he or she will respond well to your continuous education when home with you.

Some pictures of our last puppy in training! Koloa from Marvel & Kaiser :)