The price of boarding school is $100./ day.  4 week minimum (28 days.)   

Total: $2800.  We expect half up front and half on completion.

Besides the best training available for your dog, the daily fee covers boarding and training plus one go home lesson at your house.  Clients outside of the Bay Area need to pay all travel expenses.

    Our boarding school requires a minimum of 4 weeks.  After years of training dogs I have come to realize that 4 weeks is the minimum time period to fully address your dog’s education.  Beware of trainers that offer shorter board and train programs; they either do not have high standards or they force the training and get unreliable results.

Week 1:  TRUST- BONDING- ADAPTATION.  The dog moves in, meets his new friends, and bonds with his trainer.  It can be very stressful leaving your family for the first time, and for your dogs future development it is important that he is optimistic about leaving his home turf.  If he feels stressed and abandoned that leads to problems down the road when you need to board him or he needs to stay at the vet overnight.  So in the first week we set the foundation for the training and create a positive attitude that will help him confront the difficult issues that will arise during the next three weeks.  THIS POSITIVE ATTITUDE WILL STAY WITH HIM FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE!

Week 2: LEARNING HOW TO LEARN- DEVELOPING SELF CONFIDENCE.  Mental stimulation and problem solving exercises are introduced in a low pressure setting.  The goal is that your dog begins to think that training is fun, and develop the self confidence he needs to succeed when we slowly start making the training exercises harder. 

Week 3:  METAMORPHOSIS BEGINS.  During week 3 limits are placed on you dogs behavior.  Yes learning is fun, but sometimes you must do something that you do not enjoy or that involves self control.  A dog who has adapted to his new environment and bonded with his trainer, has been introduced to problem solving in positive way and has developed his self confidence is now ready to except limitations on his behaviors without resentment.  Obedience routines are developed based on the owners needs from the behavioral building blocks we established in the first 2 weeks.

Week 4:  OBEDIENCE ROUTINES PERFECTED.  Proofing is what trainers call running obedience routines in realistic situations.  One goal in training is to associate certain behavior with specific cues in the form of verbal commands.  Dogs learn situationally.  That means that if the dog has only heard the command to heel while you are walking by yourself free of any distraction they will heel; however they may not heel if you are walking with your children or carrying groceries.  These are just the times you need the obedience most.  Proofing exposes your dog to a battery of tests during which the commands that he has learned will be generalized to varying situations and distractions.  After pushing the limits of his learning ability for a week your dogs metamorphosis will be complete and he is ready to rejoin his family!

NOTE: If your dog comes in with behavioral issues it might take more time to work out, but probably not.  

Only for returning clientele, sometimes for our clients doing private lessons.  We take great pride in our work, after 17 years of professional dog training I have tried various methods, worked for many different training institutions and have settled on what I think is best for the client and the dog. BOTTOM LINE: If you have a behavior problem that has been brewing for a year or more, 4 weeks of training is the minimum time it takes help the dog, ANYTHING LESS IS JUST A BAND AID SOLUTION.  If your dog is a puppy, he needs an age appropriate learning strategy, he is too immature to be forced to learn quickly.  You will have your dog for the next 15 years, we do not want to sour his attitude towards learning and working.  If your dog is brilliant and a clean slate in terms of behavior problems, then in 4 weeks we can teach him to do amazing things and you will be very proud!

No, this can be very disruptive to the learning process.

We will give you FREE training advice on the issues we covered during our boarding school program, at our facility, at the trainers convenience.  We will do this for the life of the dog, unless we deem that the owner has not complied with our instructions at which point we can no longer be of service.  Other issues not covered in boarding school may require additional payment.

We ask you to come up with a list of behaviors you want your dog to learn.  The list should include what you want him TO DO and what you want him to STOP DOING.  We will then give you an honest evaluation on what we can get done with your particular dog in the four week period.  Typically we teach our students all of the basic obedience commands:  HEEL, SIT, DOWN, STAY, COME, WAIT, GO TO BED. 

We believe that is better to teach less commands but ask the dog to do them more reliably, than to teach every trick in the book and have an unreliable performance.  Dog’s learn at their own speeds, this can be enhanced by the highly creative trainers your pup will be working with, but still we are limited by your dog’s innate abilities, age and the time period.  Some dogs may be able to become off leash trained in 4 weeks, others will not be able to learn that quickly.  So the results will vary per dog, and we will inform of that during our initial consultation.

Send us an email or give us a call to schedule an evaluation and meet the trainer.  The fee for a 1 hour evaluation is $100. (the same as a private lesson fee)  This fee is waived if you decide to schedule a Boarding School with you dog at that time.

510 289 7718