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Digging for Answers? Read the F.A.Q.
Questions concerning dog behavior problems
Q. Why do you do in-home training?
A. Training your dog and changing his behavior is best done in the environment where the behavior occurs. Dogs do not geographically transfer information well. If your dog is exhibiting unwanted dog behavior in your home, then you need to work on the behavior where it is happening. Also, many dogs will not exhibit the bad behavior outside of your environment. Since our training is not a “one size fits all” type of philosophy, being able to understand how your household works, what is specifically important to you in your household, allows us to work with your needs and your boundaries. This allows both you and the dog to achieve success.
Q. How many lessons will I need?
A. Generally speaking it will require 3 lessons. This is totally dependent on how many dogs we are training, what the behaviors are, how much time you have to devote to working the dog in between lessons.
Q. Why is it important for me to be involved with the training? Why can’t I just send my dog away for training to fix the bad behavior?
A. It’s simple really – the dogs are the easy part, the human element is the hard part - lack of leadership on the part of the owners. Pet owners inadvertently send many incorrect messages to their dogs about where they fit in the family. Many dogs end up thinking it’s their house, their couch, their food, their yard and you definitely end up with a major problem.
The more you are involved in the dog training, the more you will understand how to structure life with your dog, the more your dog will begin to respect you as leader. You will end up with a well behaved dog.
Questions on Puppy Training
Q. What age should I begin training my puppy?
A. We like to start training at about 10 weeks of age. The puppy is old enough to stay awake for the lesson, as their participation is critical to the training.
Q. What all do you teach in your puppy lessons?
A. We literally go over everything from nose to tail. This would include, but not be limited to: housetraining, biting and nipping, chewing, chasing, crate training, sit, down, walk on a leash, nutrition, socialization and much more. All puppy training is age appropriate.
Q. What’s next after puppy lessons?
A. When your puppy reaches approximately 5 months of age, we encourage you to begin basic obedience dog training. You can do that either in private lessons or a group class.
Questions on Basic Obedience and Group Obedience Class
Q. What exactly do you teach in basic obedience?
A. Because these are private lessons in your home, we can structure the lessons to include the commands you want. Commands we can work on are sit, down, stay, come when called, go to place, wait at the door, ring a bell to go outside, kennel up, get in the car etc.
Q. Why are basic obedience commands important?
A. Basic obedience commands reinforce your position as leader, help your dog listen to you better and basic obedience commands go hand in hand with behavior modification.
Q. Can I do a group obedience class instead of private lessons?
A. You sure can. Group dog obedience classes are a great economical way for you to learn to teach your dog commands. Plus, a well trained dog is a distraction trained dog and you will have the distraction of 11 other dogs and their owners. An added benefit of our group classes is that we allow dog socialization before class starting at the 2nd class. Friendly dogs get to play freely with each other for 30 minutes prior to class.