Dog Ownership & Training

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Our primary goal is to improve the quality of life of every dog we train, as well as the quality of their relationships with their family members—human, canine, feline, or otherwise. In order to do this, we incorporate strictly scientific training methods in our program, and our methodology varies significantly based on each dog's personality, needs, and life dynamic. However, several factors remain constant across our clientele:

Focus on Force-Free Positive Reinforcement Training

In order to help build a trusting relationship between you and your dog (and between us and your dog), we will not use or condone any of the other quadrants of operant conditioning unless we have exhausted the possibility of solving the problem with positive reinforcement and consulted with other training professionals to determine whether other quadrants are absolutely necessary. Whether your dog needs puppy socialization, basic obedience training, or behavior modification training, aversive training methods will practically never be necessary or appropriate. If you have any questions regarding this, we are more than happy to help you understand our rationale, but it simply is not ethical to manipulate a dog's behavior by subjecting them to fear and confusion when the same (or better) results could be achieved via positive reinforcement.

Ethical Dog Ownership

In order to ensure the best possible quality of life for our clients, we reserve the right to drop clients who refuse to practice ethical ownership practices, but we will always attempt to educate and cross over clients first. This primarily refers to using aversive training methods, but it also includes proper vetting, feeding, and housing practices. We will not drop a client simply because they are uneducated regarding canine ethics and following some unethical practices, but we also will not contribute to neglect, abuse, or otherwise unethical practices of dog ownership. Additionally, we will not work for anyone who supports dog fighting in any way.

Education

The most important thing that is lacking in the dog world (ownership, training, and breeding included) is education. We strive to provide any and all necessary information to people involved with dogs regardless of whether they hire us to train their dogs. The more we can spread knowledge and understanding about canine health, behavior, and genetics, the faster we will be able to fix all of the issues we have in the dog world. To help with this, we provide free information on a variety of dog-related topics throughout our website. We have also added quizzes to our pages so that people visiting our website can test their knowledge; we may also require some prospective clients to read specific pages relevant to their dog and pass the quiz before we take them on as a client.

Owners' Involvement In Training

The most important part of us training your dog is helping you to acquire the skills you need to do it yourself. We are here to teach you how to do the training because the majority of the work will happen when we are not there with you. We will not train your dog for you and return it to you; if the dog has not established a relationship of trust and mutual benefit with you, they will not cooperate with you after being trained by someone else. Even if we agree to do a board & train, we would require the dog's owners to work with us and their dog throughout the duration of the dog's stay to ensure a mutual relationship of respect and trust so that the dog will cooperate with you long-term. If you are on vacation during that time, this would likely consist of one or two hour-long training session(s), but otherwise we would require the family's involvement throughout the board & train.

Services & Pricing

Our top priority is to provide education and training to as many people and dogs as possible, and we understand that professional dog training services are not accessible to everyone. We may be able to offer discounted prices based on need and other circumstances, but that will be decided on a case by case basis. If you need a science-informed, ethical dog trainer but cannot afford to hire anyone who is local and certified, do not hesitate to reach out so we can help you come up with a solution. We are currently offering several promotional coupons within the PDF near the top of our Home page!