We start the process by coming to your home to meet your dog and drop off the audio, video and workbook. Then we give you a few days to study them so you can lay in a foundation of information. After that we start a series of six lessons with you at your home.
Each lesson starts off by us working with your dog, so that we can use our expertise to teach them what we want while learning their idiosyncratic personality traits. Learning their personality is important since subtle changes in handling can have a major effect on the ease with which your dog learns. We then pivot to teach you what we just did and why we did it. At that point, you will work with your dog under our supervision so we can help you gain the correct handling skills. Upon the completion of the lesson, we will assign homework with a specific goal to achieve prior to the next lesson.
The minimum time between the lessons is one week. This is the typical amount of time needed for you to practice and master your learned skills in order to get to the proper level of conditioning with your dog. The one week time frame is based on the assumption that you will be able to work with your dog at least two times per day. These are short sessions, but they need to be spaced at least one hour apart from one another. If this is not a realistic schedule for you, then the lessons can instead be spaced out with us every two weeks requiring you work with your dog only once per day. This will slow the training process, but it will ensure the quality of the end results.
There is a common belief that private lessons are a better choice than boarding training because it is better for bonding if the owner does all of the training. This belief is simply not true. While an owner is learning new handling techniques it can be confusing for a dog that has never learned the exercises before. A dog that has been through boarding training often times understands what the owner is attempting to do even if the technique is performed incorrectly. Training goes much quicker for both owner and dog with boarding training and the same level of bonding is achieved in either program.
Private lessons are however a great choice for dogs that do not do well in boarding situations or suffer from extreme anxiety and fear.
Private lessons also include a lifetime membership into our group class and workshops.
We do not offer individual private lessons as one session will yield positive but temporary results and our programs are based in lasting changes for you and your dog. For this reason, private lessons come in a bundle of at least six sessions.
Please call us to enroll in Private Lessons – (770) 910-9311