FAQs

• Individual Attention: This service allows you to take the time to learn how to become a good trainer yourself. I always go through the exercises with you to ensure that you feel confident and able to practice them in all different scenarios.

• Addressing Behavior Challenges: Challenging behavior issues require an individualized approach and special attention and guidance from a professional. Whether it’s reactivity, fear based behaviors, anxiety, or over excitement, I work with you to help you find and understand the underlying cause and give you the knowledge, confidence and support to work through them with your dog, every step of the way.

• Custom Training Plans: Created with your home, schedule and needs in mind. I work to create a realistic custom plan in alignment with your goals and available time you can commit to training your dog. I always lead with honestly and you and your dog’s feelings in mind when creating a practical plan suitable for everyone.

• Convenience of location: I come to you in your home, in order to see your dog’s environment, assist in creating management plans, identify where problem behaviors might be occurring and what can be done about them. Dogs usually learn best where they are most comfortable, especially if your dog has big feelings and is nervous or excitable. Your home is usually the best place to begin!

• Easy Scheduling: Appointments are tailored to your schedule and works to get your dog trained that much easier for you!

• Creating a Trusting Bond: The more we work with our dog, the more we learn to speak their language and meet their needs, the greater the bond we create with our canine companions.

• Empowering Handlers: My goal is to make training digestible, fun and accessible for you. If you do not understand, feel overwhelmed or lost in training, I work with you until we can find a way to make you feel good about working with your dog. You also learn how to speak "dog." I love to educate about dog body language, ethology and psychology to help you better understand what your dog is saying!

• Polite loose leash walking

• Healing

• Leave it! leave that alone and give me eye contact

• Drop: spit that out

• Stay

• Recall

• Go to your bed: go to a bed, lie down and stay there until released

• Confidence building: using pattern games and exercises

• Sitting instead of jumping: how to sit when humans approach!

• Reactivity: barking at dogs, people, triggers— using counter conditioning and desensitization paired with relaxation exercises

• Tricks: like how to fetch, shake, spin and other fun exercises to improve yours and your dogs skills

• Sport dog: physical fitness activities to work on strengthening your dog’s muscles, balance, back end awareness and coordination for injury prevention.

• Enrichment

• and more

They include a customized training plan and write-up of what we worked on in the lesson!

Unfortunately, I cannot answer that for you, as much as I would like to. That is completely contingent on what your goals are, how quickly your dog learns and how much time you have to commit to training. No two dogs are alike and all have different needs and learning capabilities, so there is no one finite prescription I can give you.

As we work together and I get to know your dog, I can give you a training plan and general timeline for how long training certain behaviors generally takes to learn and how much of a time commitment is necessary, based on your goals for your dog.

Any aged dog can benefit from private lessons. All dogs are capable of learning new things regardless of age. Despite the popular saying, even older dogs can learn new things (with a little patience.)

Private lessons usually start within your home. If your home is not an option, we make plans to meet in a different location, contingent on your dog’s issues and abilities. When training new behaviors, it is usually best to start in the environment where your dog feels the most comfortable and able to learn. As they learn and improve, we take the training to more challenging environments.

• For your first lesson, you want to ensure that your dog is hungry and ready to work and learn. This means either feeding them none or half of their meal, depending on the timing of the scheduled lesson.

• Your dog will need to be confined upon my entry, whether it be a a different room, crate, or on a leash.

• Have a few different kinds of small, bite size treats ready.

• Have a clicker

• Have something to hold your treats in! This can be a fanny pack, waist pouch, bait bag, or clip on pouch

• If you would like to take notes, a pen and paper is always encouraged