Beginner Classes-
Strong Foundations for You and Your Dog
Our Beginner Classes are designed to set you and your dog up for success from the start. These classes focus on clear communication, practical life skills, and building confidence so your dog can learn calmly, thoughtfully, and reliably in real-world situations.
Puppy Head Start — 8 weeks | $200
Bringing home a puppy is one of the most joyful — and challenging — moments in dog ownership. The early months are a powerful learning period that shapes how your puppy experiences the world, responds to stress, and builds relationships with people and other dogs.
Our Puppy Head Start class is designed for puppies under 6 months old and is AKC STAR Puppy compliant, providing structured guidance during this critical developmental window. Through clear, consistent training in a supportive group setting, we help puppies develop confidence, focus, and foundational manners that set the stage for a calm, adaptable, and well-mannered adult dog.
Goals
The goal of Puppy Head Start is to help puppies begin learning how to:
-
Focus on and engage with their handler
-
Respond to basic cues in a positive, low-pressure environment
-
Feel confident in new places and around new people
-
Build appropriate social skills with people and other dogs
-
Develop age-appropriate obedience foundations
-
Understand structure, boundaries, and expectations in a gentle way
Our Approach for This Class
Puppies learn best when training is clear, consistent, and enjoyable. In this class, we use a balanced blend of structured guidance and play-based learning to keep puppies engaged while still building meaningful skills.
Training emphasizes:
-
Short, successful repetitions that set puppies up to win
-
Food, play, and engagement as primary motivators
-
Games that naturally teach focus, recalls, and body awareness
-
Gradual confidence-building experiences that avoid overwhelm
-
Clear communication so puppies understand expectations
This approach helps puppies develop a strong love of learning while maintaining enthusiasm and preventing frustration.
How It Works
Puppy Head Start is an 8-week group class designed to introduce essential skills while supporting early social and behavioral development.
This class includes:
-
Eight (8) one-hour group training sessions
-
Foundational skills including:
-
Sit, Down, Stay
-
Loose Leash Walking
-
Recall
-
Leave It
-
Place
-
Luring & Targeting
-
Cooperative Care
-
Supervised Separation
-
Greeting Manners
-
Engagement skills and games
-
-
Home Management strategies for common puppy challenges
-
Potty training support and troubleshooting
-
Structured socialization with people, environments, and appropriate dogs
-
Simple weekly practice exercises to reinforce learning at home
Basics & Beyond — 8 weeks | $200
After your puppy or young dog has a foundation, the next step is turning basic skills into reliable, everyday manners. This is where clarity, consistency, and real-world application become the focus.
Our Basics & Beyond class is designed for dogs 6 months and older who understand the fundamentals and are ready to build greater reliability, impulse control, and practical life skills. This class strengthens communication between you and your dog while introducing more structure, expectations, and distraction so behaviors hold up in real life — not just in class.
Goal
The goal of Basics & Beyond is to help dogs:
-
Improve focus and engagement with their handler
-
Strengthen reliability on known cues
-
Learn to make better choices around distractions
-
Develop polite manners in everyday situations
-
Build impulse control and emotional regulation
-
Generalize skills beyond the training space
Our Approach for This Class
Basics & Beyond blends structured obedience with real-world application so dogs learn to think, not just respond.
Training emphasizes:
-
Clear communication and consistent expectations
-
Progressive challenges that build reliability
-
Thoughtful use of reinforcement to reward calm, appropriate behavior
-
Guided practice around increasing levels of distraction
-
Helping handlers develop better timing, clarity, and follow-through
This approach helps dogs move from “knowing” a skill to truly understanding and applying it in everyday life.
How It Works
Basics & Beyond is an 8-week group class that builds week-to-week with increasing expectations and real-world practice.
This class includes:
-
Eight (8) one-hour group training sessions
-
Foundational and advancing skills including:
-
Sit, Down, Stay
-
Loose Leash Walking
-
Recall
-
Leave It (food, non-food, dogs, and people)
-
Luring & Targeting
-
Cooperative Care
-
Greeting Manners
-
Doorway Manners
-
Engagement Games
-
Disengagement Games
-
-
Practice with controlled distractions to build reliability
-
Guidance on applying skills in everyday situations
-
Simple weekly exercises to support consistency at home
200 US dollars