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Fort Collins
Laidley, a spirited Australian Cattle Dog, began her training journey at Summit Dog Training as a nine-week-old pup with big goals: to become a hiking companion, a brewery buddy, and a future sport dog. Through positive reinforcement and consistent training, Laidley has transformed into a confident, well-mannered adventure partner. Her story is a testament to the power of patience, dedication, and the right support. Ready to start your dog’s adventure? Let Laidley’s journey inspire your own!
By: Shay Cline & Amber Quann
Positive exposure to things your puppy will experience for the rest of their life during the early stages of development can help ensure you have a happy and confident adventure buddy!
There are many definitions of socialization - almost as many as the opinions you will find on how it should be done!
Laura VanArendonk Baugh describes the need for socialization in puppies this way: "If we want our dogs to be acceptable, happy, welcome, and safe in human society, we need to socialize them to human norms." And not just any human norms, but your daily norms. Prioritize what your puppy will need to be comfortable with as a partner in your life. At its core, socializing is preparing your puppy to accept and navigate the situations they will likely encounter during their adventures with you.
Socialization isn't about simply exposing our puppies to something until they accept it. It is about teaching our puppies how to cope with the world around them and how to deal with future adventures.
When planning to socialize your puppy, safety should be a top priority. The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior recommends starting safe socialization efforts before your puppy is fully vaccinated. (Read the full position statement here.)
Choose your environments carefully - you can start your socialization in low-traffic areas frequented by known vaccinated dogs (i.e. neighbor’s backyard), and move to higher-traffic areas as your puppy completes their vaccinations. Areas that are familiar to you will also give you more confidence when handling various situations that you and your pup may encounter- this will help them view you as safe and reliable.
Think “Observe & Learns” - Taking your puppy on a ride in the car and letting them watch out the window at a shopping mall parking lot is a great socialization experience with minimal risks. Bring a chewy along to help them process all of the new information in a safe, appropriate way.
Everything should be the puppy’s choice! We should never force a puppy to interact with anyone or anything that they are not choosing to interact with if it isn’t completely necessary. You can always make a mental note of the things that are scary for your puppy and try reintroducing them in a way that feels more comfortable for them later on.
New things = puppy gets lots of things they enjoy. This could be yummy treats, a favorite toy, attention from you, the opportunity to sniff something new, etc. This helps puppies maintain optimism about novel things later in life.
More than just meeting dogs & people - Realistically, we don’t interact with every person and dog we pass. Focusing on neutrality around most people can also help you reserve interactions for people who are safe, coachable, and open to helping you with your puppy’s training! A good socialization list also includes exposure to different sights, sounds, and smells, so keep these things in mind when setting up new experiences for your puppy.
Quality over Quantity - Keep socialization experiences short and sweet! A good socialization experience leaves your puppy wanting more, rather than being overwhelmed. 5-10 minutes may be all your puppy can handle confidently in a new situation at first.
Recover with rest time in between - Nap time is important recovery time between new experiences. A well-rested puppy will be more ready to enjoy the next socialization experience!
Body Language - Learning a bit about how dogs communicate using their body language is an essential part of supporting our puppies. Once you understand the basics of how your puppy communicates, be on the lookout for these behaviors as you are watching your puppy during their socialization experiences.
Eating Food - Can your puppy eat food during the socialization experience? If they normally eat food willingly, and they become unable to eat food, this is a good indication that they might be overwhelmed or nearing their comfort threshold.
Playing with Favorite Toys - Can your puppy play with their favorite toy?
Exploring and Engaging with the Environment - Can they sniff and explore the new environment with relaxed body language? Or are they sticking close to you or looking for a place to hide?
Our Adventure Camp for Puppies is designed with all these principles—and more—in mind to help your puppy become an adventure-ready, well-socialized companion.
Each day of our camp includes:
Social Skills Development: We aim to create a safe learning environment for your puppy to develop social skills in a small group setting of appropriate people and dogs, and learn how to be calm and neutral around strangers.
Exposure to New Experiences: We introduce new sights, surfaces, sounds, and experiences to puppies in age-appropriate ways, with an emphasis on building confidence, optimism, and trust.
Naps & Downtime: Every day includes quiet time in individual pens where puppies can chew, rest, and decompress. We also use this time to focus on building settle, confinement, and separation skills.
Life Skills Training: We start introducing your puppy to a wide range of concepts and skills they will need to be successful in Fort Collins and beyond. This includes leash walking skills, coming when called, relaxing on a mat, greeting politely, and more! You will get a daily progress report that comes with focus points unique to your puppy, as well as private sessions with a trainer to build your skills as a team.
Are you ready to start your puppy’s socialization journey and create a confident, adventure-ready companion? Our Adventure Camp for Puppies is here to help! Schedule a Discovery Call with the Adventure Camp team today!
See what a day of Adventure Puppy Camp looks like!
By: Taylor Heid
Google Search bar image with commonly asked questions about training a dog listed below.
Whether you are bringing home a new pup or looking to train a current pet, these are some of the most frequently asked questions that might be running through your mind (and Google’s search bar!). While you may find some answers you are looking for on the internet, they may not always be the most accurate. There is no perfect answer AI can generate in 30 seconds for you, and the experts’ answer might not be the one you are expecting…
Let’s take a look at the most general question: “Can I train my dog?” You might have different variations of this question such as “How hard is it to train a dog?” or “How long will it take to train my dog?” and so on.
Well, it depends! Each training plan, session, and progress is going to depend on the dog themselves. Factors like the dog’s personality, their genetic breed, and their environment are all going to play a part in what their training looks like.
Your silly and goofy teenage dog might be eager to learn, happy to eat treats, and could thrive with a more structured training plan. Whereas a shy or nervous pup might need some time to open up and gain confidence to start building a stronger bond with their human first.
A border collie who was bred for herding and lives on the farm is going to need a significantly different training approach than your family’s toy poodle lap dog. Each of their humans are also going to have different goals for these pups.
Some dogs might do great in a group class and enjoy the socialization aspect of it, while others might need to utilize private lessons for more one-on-one time with less stimulation and distractions.
Not all humans learn the same and neither do dogs! While this isn’t the quickest and easiest answer to grasp, once you take the time to understand your dog’s needs I promise you will have more success in the long run.
All this to say - there is no one size fits all answer when it comes to training your dog. That’s why turning to the experts is a no brainer. At Summit® Dog Training, we always take a customized approach when creating our training programs. While the group class curriculum might be decided ahead of time, our trainers are always modifying the material and methods to best suit the needs of students in the class. In our private lessons program, we consider each owner’s input and goals, and our trainers bring their expertise in dog knowledge to find the best route to achieve the desired results.
It might not be the most satisfying answer, but when asking the right questions to get started on your dog training journey, it truly does depend!
Summit® Dog Training offers group dog training classes & private lessons in Fort Collins, Colorado, as well as online self-study courses & online private lessons for education on how to live the best life with your dog! If you are looking for more training support, please don’t hesitate to contact us! We’d love to help you and your dog get ready for any adventure.
By Shay Cline
Oftentimes when we bring home a new puppy we have a lot of dreams about taking them for long strolls on our favorite trails or around the neighborhood. Some folks may already have a great walking routine down with adult dogs in the family and are eager for the new addition to dive right in. This may not always go as smoothly as we hope for a few reasons. Puppies run out of gas quickly and still have a lot of development to do physically and mentally. This often leads to one of several common behavior struggles on a walk.
Puppy stops walking and refuses to move
Puppy begins frantically biting their leash, your legs, ect.
Zoomies!
Inability to pass distractions calmly and/or confidently
It is important for puppies of all sizes to learn good leash skills! This includes the basic concept of how to follow along with a human while on leash. We also want to start teaching your puppy that the leash is associated with lots of fun adventures and shouldn’t be scary or frustrating. Learning these vital leash skills often looks very different from just going for a walk, like we may do with an older dog.
Here is a guide of how to keep expectations accurate based on your puppy’s age:
8-16 Weeks:
Keep sustained leash walking practice to very short busts. Puppies in this age range should have lots of opportunities to just explore the environment at their own pace. You’re there with your handy leash to keep them safe and out of trouble. Think of it more as a safety net than a steering wheel!
Stop if your puppy stops, and try to end sessions before or as soon as you notice any signs of fatigue.
Roughly 10 minutes of exploring at puppies pace in addition to maybe 2-3 minutes of any formal training.
4-6 Months:
We can begin to gradually increase the duration of adventures as the puppy’s stamina increases, but sustained walking (especially on sidewalks or other hard surfaces) should still be kept to short sessions.
6-12 Months:
Puppies begin to enter adolescence. With this comes a big increase in stamina, but it is also common for puppies in this age range to struggle a lot with self control and focus. Your puppy may become more sensitive to exciting distractions such as wildlife, people, or other dogs.
Emotional shifts are big and can happen quickly! Adolescent dogs are sensitive and can quickly become overstimulated or stressed, leading to pulling, lunging, excessive hunting behaviors, and more!
Place a big emphasis at this phase on sniffing, enrichment, and low-arousal play for exercise. Adjust training sessions as needed to keep them fun and successful.
Starting a puppy leash walking routine is crucial for setting them up to be successful for those strolls in the neighborhood or hiking on your favorite trails that you dream of long-term. If you need some guidance or help along the way, don’t hesitate to reach out to Summit or sign up for our puppy and adolescent classes to create solid foundational skills on the leash!
Owner walks a black puppy on a leash in Old Town Fort Collins
By Benah Stiewing
A dog who barks, lunges, and experiences elevated stress when another dog or person appears during a walk is a difficult habit for you and your dog to experience. The word “reactive” is a label we use to describe a certain set of behaviors that dogs exhibit
under specific conditions, such as exposure to a “trigger” like another dog or person. Since we all might have slightly different visions of what a “reactive” dog looks like, below are some of the behaviors that might put your dog into this category. Having a dog who displays any of the below behaviors is stressful at best and extremely emotionally draining at worst for both you and your dog.
Fixation on the trigger (orienting towards, unable to turn away)
Pulling toward the trigger
Hard staring (no blinking, jaw stiff, often includes a freeze as well)
Barking
Lunging
Snapping / Biting
Though your dog’s reactivity may be frustrating and invoke anger from you or folks on the receiving end of their reactive behavior, it’s important to understand that your dog is having a bad time, not being bad. All behavior is affected by what comes before it (antecedents) and what comes after it (consequences). Understanding this sequence can help us understand why your dog does what they do, and how we may successfully modify undesirable behavior, like leash reactivity.
Antecedent: whatever happens BEFORE the behavior. (e.g. trigger entering the
environment, a cue that you give, etc.)
Behavior: whatever observable actions the dog takes following an antecedent (e.g.
whine, bark, lunge, respond to your cue, etc.)
Consequence: whatever happens AFTER the behavior. (e.g. the trigger leaving the
environment, the trigger getting closer, the dog being pulled from the environment, you
delivering a tasty treat, etc.)
We can visualize the whole sequence like this: Antecedent → Behavior → Consequence
To understand how to modify behavior and change the reactivity we see in our dogs, it is helpful
to think about what consequence the dog might get out of the behavior they are currently
choosing. What function does the reactive behavior serve for the dog? If a dog’s behavior functions in a way where the consequence is advantageous to the dog (i.e. it is something the dog wants), the behavior is more likely to occur again in the future. For example, if your dog barks at another dog on a walk, and what your dog really wants is for that dog to go away, when the other dog walks away with its human, your dog will learn that the most effective way to achieve their goal is to bark at dogs that make them uncomfortable.
This is important to understand because a critical key to behavior modification is to prevent rehearsal of the undesirable behavior. The more the behavior is practiced (and reinforced), the stronger the behavior will become. To prevent undesirable behavior, we need to understand your dog’s threshold. Threshold is the term we use to describe the point at which a dog transitions from a comfortable state of mind to a more distressed mental state, in which we see outward behavioral symptoms of their discomfort (i.e. reactive behaviors). Before we are able to effectively modify a dog’s behavior, we need to recognize situations that cause them to become distressed and work to prevent them so we can keep our dogs comfortably just below that threshold level while we teach them new coping skills.
Things that can bring a dog over threshold:
A separate event that has caused the dog stress recently - i.e. a thunderstorm during the night before or a recent vet visit.
A trigger becoming more intense and/or coming closer to you - i.e. dog walking towards
you rather than away.
The dog being tired / hungry / thirsty (like at the end of a walk)
Encountering multiple triggers in a row / at the same time - this is called trigger stacking.
The goal threshold for training sessions with our reactive dogs fluctuates at the borderline between their comfort-zone (no reactions) & over-threshold (big reactions), and well within their comfort-zone. We want to give our dogs exposure that will help them learn, and then contrast that exposure with easy recoveries at a distance where they feel as comfortable (and non-reactive) as possible. Initial learning (such as foundation skills like focusing on you, responding to basic cues, etc.) is best done well below the comfort-zone threshold line. If you are trying to teach your dog new skills for the very first time at or above their level of comfort, this will be very difficult. Start by rehearsing good behaviors and skills in practice areas where your dog feels most comfortable, like your living room or your backyard.
Our goal through behavior modification is to create a different set of behavior patterns for our
reactive dogs that fit better into our human expectations of appropriate canine behavior. In order to help our dogs do this, we need to set them up for success with some environmental management. This means facilitating situations where our dogs can be successful and guiding them, through our training, to make better choices. Management comes into play to prevent our dogs from rehearsing the unwanted behaviors until the dog has a better behavior built up to replace the reactive behavior. Pushing your dog into uncomfortable situations just because they haven't reacted yet is not necessarily setting them up for success. They don’t need to cross their threshold to learn!
Management ideas:
Cross the street or duck behind a car if a dog is approaching and you won’t have the space you need for your dog to be successful.
Install visual barriers on your windows and play white noise so your dog can’t practice their reactivity in the home.
Behavior modification is the process by which we teach our reactive dogs a different set of
feelings and, most importantly, behaviors about situations they would typically default to reactive
behaviors. To help change your dog’s current association to the sight of other dogs, we provide VERY HIGH VALUE treats (think diced chicken, liverwurst, and hotdogs) when your dog is in the
presence of other dogs (or other triggers). Over time, and with proper desensitization, your dog will learn to associate the presence of other dogs with yummy things. Your mantra should be “good things happen for my dog when other dogs are around!” We would prefer if the presence of another dog was a happy, exciting event for your dog. Our goal is for your dog to see another dog and immediately look to you as if to say, “Yipee! I see another dog! That means I get chicken, right?!” No barking or lunging, just an excited, expectant look on your dog’s face.
Behavior modification is a complex task, and if you are struggling with leash reactivity we recommend seeking the support of a certified trainer. This post barely skims the surface of all the components that could be part of a leash reactivity training plan! Consider starting with our Reactivity in Dogs Webinar that dives deeper into the complexities of this behavior, and how we may support our dogs in developing different behaviors around their triggers.
If you want additional support for you and your dog, we offer in-person Group Classes and Private Lessons for reactive dogs in Fort Collins, Colorado and Chatham, New York, and virtual coaching right in the comfort of your home. As you work through your dog’s leash reactivity, it’s vital to remember that your dog isn’t giving you a hard time, they are having a hard time - the more we can understand this, the better we may serve our dogs.
Summit Dog Training offers group dog training classes & private lessons in Fort Collins, Colorado, as well as online self-study courses & online private lessons for education on how to live the best life with your dog! If you are looking for more training support, please don’t hesitate to contact us! We’d love to help you and your dog get ready for any adventure.
Guest post by Jennifer Holmes, a Certified Veterinary Technician (CVT), a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner (CCRP), and a Fit Paws - Master Trainer (FP-MT). Her company, K9FitnessWorks, offers group classes & private lessons specializing in canine fitness.
April is National Canine Fitness Month! What is Canine fitness?
You may have seen articles, Facebook posts, or seminars on canine fitness. What is it? Why would my dog want to take a fitness class or even go to a Certified Canine Fitness Trainer?
Fitness by definition is the quality of being conditioned physically to perform a role or task in life. When we think of our fitness it brings up images of the gym, outdoor activities, or working with a trainer for a specific sport purpose. Fitness can also be a way to improve muscle, tendon, and nerve health so you and your dog can function at the highest health capacity in your favorite activities.
Ryder loves Canine Fitness!
It fills my heart with passion to talk about the benefits of a creative, fun exercise plan for your pup and you to bond. In the 70s and 80s I taught my dogs to sit, down, and shake because it was fun time with my dog. I did not realize I was also teaching them body awareness. Body awareness is the dog knowing where it’s body is in a certain space. Why is this important? When your dog runs for a ball or catch a Frisbee in the air their body spins and twist in different directions. If their muscles are trained to handle the speed and spins they will safely grab the ball or catch the Frisbee. When their muscles are not conditioned because they have been in the house and yard all week then you play on the weekend, your dog can have muscle, tendon, or disk injuries during spins to catch their favorite toy. As a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner since 2012, I have seen the various injuries that can occur during innocent ball throwing. The biggest impact owners can do for their dogs is a creative exercise plan to strengthen up their muscles, tendons, and nerves.
3 tips you can do RIGHT. NOW. to improve your dog body awareness:
1. A quick couple minute warmup before ball or Frisbee play by a quick brisk walk to wake the body up, stimulate the nerves, and improve muscle reaction time.
2. A few repeated sit-to-stand exercises to warm up key muscles they will use to play ball or catch the Frisbee. (Cue your dog to sit, then cue them to stand, then back to sit, etc.)
3. Throwing the ball or Frisbee straight to limit the amount of twisting they have to do while in action to catch the toy.
Echo & Ryder balance like pros - working on those core muscles that will help them avoid injury in agility!
At Summit Dog Training, we offer fitness classes to help you help your dog have the fittest life they can! Our Intro to Fitness class covers warmups, cool downs, and more creative ways to strengthen your dog for play. I also offer 1-on-1 fitness sessions to create a specific plan for you and your pup to live a long happy life.
The next Intro to Fitness classes will be starting Saturday, May 13th at 9:00am & Saturday, June 17th at 10:00am. Check out the Summit Dog Training website for more info! In honor of Canine Fitness Month, we are offering 10% off fitness class tuition through April 30th. Use promo code APRILFIT.
A couple of students from our last Intro to Fitness class had this to say:
“Thanks Jennifer! It was a super fun class.” - Shelley
“Echo and I just finished a series of 6 weeks in Jennifer's Canine Sport Dog Fitness Class. By the end of the classes I gained so much knowledge on how to strengthen and assess Echo's body condition. It was so much fun working with Jennifer and I would highly recommend her talents to all dog owners whether in a canine sporting event or just with a family pet.” - Barb
Our dogs are a huge part of our lives, and they shower us with love all year long. Here are three ideas for how to show your special four-legged someone how much they mean to you this month!
These are just a few ideas for making this month a great month for you and your dog! If you come up with other great ideas, we want to hear about them! Tag us in your adventures on Facebook or Instagram and use #SDTmonthoflove so we can share in your excitement!
It has been a crazy (good kind, I think) week coming off of one of the biggest events of the year in the life of many positive reinforcement dog trainers: Clicker Expo 2017 in Portland, OR. Over three days of dog nerds from around the country geeking out together to the genius of the gods of the positive reinforcement training world, an impressive lineup including Ken Ramirez, Dr. Susan Friedman, Kathy Sdao, Hannah Branigan, and so many more!
Charissa and I came back from this immersion with lots of new ideas and inspirations. Some of these ideas may not seem so practical once we come down off the CE high induced by exposure to the greats of our industry and a significant lack of sleep, but we'll see. It was a wonderful trip.
Attending training conferences also never fails to inspire me to fine tune my training with my own dog. Roo is a wonderful pup, and as much of my time and energy is devoted to helping other humans and their dogs build positive relationships together, he often gets the short end of the stick. But after Kathy Sdao encouraged us to consider taking more time to do activities that "keep our candle burning," I am trying to be more intentional about spending time with my own heart dog - he is, after all, one of the reasons I love training as much as I do!
The first concept I put into action was based on Hannah Branigan's presentation "High Precision, High Scores." In this lecture, she broke down the behaviors sit, down and stand and discussed how to get the precision movements you need in order to offer peak performance in the obedience and rally ring. I decided I should go back and take a look at how my dog performs the "sit" behavior to see if he was doing it the most efficient (and precise) way. Turns out, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but still could use a little bit of improvement! Here's our first session working on this. I am selecting for a "tucked" sit where his hind legs come up to meet his stationary front legs instead of a "rock-back" sit where his front feet follow his rear back.
So sorry for the terrible video quality! Can't seem to fix it, but if you want to see this clip in better quality, check it out on our instagram feed here.
Next, we tried some concept training, inspired by Ken Ramirez's lab on this topic. We started with Match to Sample, which is teaching the dog to indicate the object that is the same as the object you present to them. Roo had this concept in less than a 10 minute training session, and I started introducing novel objects as well. This game is built on other skills (follow a target, settle at station, respond to a cue, etc.) that we have worked on previously. Check this out!
How cool is that?! Can't wait to see what else he learns next.
These are just a few of the fun tidbits we brought back from Clicker Expo. We can't wait to improve our class curriculum, our behavior modification protocols, and our client interactions based on our new ideas. Learning new things helps us to be the best that we can be, and we can't wait to pass along that benefit to our students and their dogs!
Happy clicking!
In the world of dog toys, there are literally thousands to choose from. Plush, rubber, rope, firehose, rawhide, hooves, (and other less classy animal body parts!) . . . and the list goes on. It can be a little overwhelming to think about narrowing it down to the type of toy that will provide the most benefit for your dog.
The toy with the most benefit is not always the same thing as the toy with the most fun. My dog has TONS of fun with plush toys . . . and by TONS, I mean about 30 seconds no matter what the starting size of the toy. But this brief and frenzied shredding of toy guts is not providing my crazy pup with any longer lasting benefits, such as the relaxation that comes after the stimulation of a mental challenge. Like my pup Roo, many dogs thrive most with play that gives them an outlet for both their mental and physical energy. (If you do want to consider a squeaky toy of some sort for your dog, here is a great resource on selecting an appropriate squeaky toy for your dog’s needs.)
For toys that provide both a mental and physical energy outlet, my favorite category of toys is food puzzles! These toys provide an outlet for both parts of your dog that need attention - for the physical side, chasing a food puzzle around the floor is a great indoor outlet; for the mental component, figuring out how to get the food reward hidden or stuck inside the puzzle is much more challenging than ripping up a flimsy plush toy!
A few of my pup's favorite types of food puzzles! Kong Classics, Kong Wobbler, Orbee Snoop, and Trixie Puzzle Boxes.
Our go-to favorite is (and might always be) the Kong Classics. Coming in multiple sizes, rubber strengths, and shape variations, these toys are great for stuffing and very portable. Our favorite way to use them is mixing peanut butter and yogurt and placing the freezer for a few hours. This creates a cool treat that takes a while to work out! The Kong Wobbler is another favorite - Roo gets at least one of his meals each day in this toy, and has to push it around (I put it in his crate to keep the crumbs contained) to get the kibble to fall out. I highly recommend this version for dogs that are hyperactive around meal times!
One of the recent additions to our favorites list is the Orbee Snoop made by Planet Dog. This soft rubber toy is also great for feeding kibble or small treats. Roo knocks his around the house and enjoys this variation on his Kong Wobbler meal.
For supervised play (I recommend supervising your dog whenever you introduce a new toy, but the following toys should involve a little extra oversight), puzzle boxes are a great way to mix it up for your dog! These challenges involve pulling, pushing, knocking, and otherwise navigating a toy to get individual pieces (or jackpots here and there) out of the toy. There are a lot of different types of these games. A client recently gave me two Trixie Activity Boxes, so Roo got to give something new a try! Here is his first introduction on video. He loved the challenge!
Roo got to try out a Trixie Poker Box Food Puzzle for the first time this past week! Here are the highlights!
Whatever type of food puzzle you choose, introduce it to your dog in a way that makes their first attempt at the toy very reinforcing so they are excited to keep playing with it! And if your dog doesn't like a particular type of puzzle, there are lots of different ones to try. The most important thing to consider is what gives your dog the most benefit on top of some fun!
Happy puzzling!
Check out Puzzle Me, Please Part 2 & Part 3 for more food puzzle recommendations!
Happy November! It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is barely 3 weeks away! With the busy holiday season rapidly approaching, it's important to keep your dog's brain and energy engaged in a positive direction. That way, your pup can be on his best behavior when the in-laws come to visit and you have one less thing to worry about!
Don't have the time to commit to one of our 6 week classes? No problem! Come take advantage of one of our four holiday drop in classes:
Family Dog - This one hour class focuses on good behavior in the home and getting ready to get out in the community for your dog or older puppy! You and your dog will learn specific skills like sit, down, stay, come, loose leash walking, greeting people and dogs calmly, and more! For dogs and puppies over 6 months of age. Class dates are Thursdays, November 17, December 1, December 8, and December 15 at 10:30am. Click here to register.
Leave It! & Park It! Games - Come practice your dog's recall, leave it, and settle skills in an hour of fun and good practice for your dog! What better way to burn off some puppy energy before your holiday party than with this hour-long class! No prerequisites - great for dogs over 6 months of age. Class dates are Wednesdays, December 7 and 14 at 5:30pm. Click here to register.
Fun/Foundation Agility - Are you and your dog interested in getting started in the fun dog sport of Agility? This hour-long drop-in class is a great way to give it a try - and to give your dog a fun activity during the busy holiday season! Prerequisites: Dogs must have basic skills such as heel, sit, down, stay, and come. Class dates are Mondays, December 12 and 19 at 6:45pm. Click here to register. NOTE: Must have a minimum of 4 students registered to hold these drop-ins.
Rally - During the holiday season, come in for an hour and learn new skills with your dog! This class is more than just practice time, and your instructor will be teaching a different Rally lesson each week. Great for new or more experienced students. Preregistration is REQUIRED so that the instructor can design an appropriate lesson/course for all participants! Class dates are Mondays, November 28, December 5, and December 12 at 5:30pm. Click here to register.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us! Or if you are interested in starting off the New Year on the right paw, check out our January schedule. We look forward to seeing you soon!
