Basic Obedience

The behaviors we teach across six weeks

Sit and down get built first, usually by luring with food and then phasing the lure out as the verbal cue takes over. Stay gets built by teaching duration first, then distance, then distraction. Come is the foundation of recall, with the word treated as sacred and paid every time the dog returns. Leash walking gets taught as a position the dog earns reinforcement for, with handler movement as the cue. Basic doggie manners covers the real-world skills that make the dog livable, including door manners, settle, leave-it, and drop-it.

By the end of the six weeks the household has a dog whose foundation cues are reliable in the training environment, a protocol the household can keep running at home, and a clear picture of which behaviors need more proofing across the months that follow.

Marker training and the three Ds

Marker training is the mechanism that makes positive reinforcement work fast. The marker, a clicker or a verbal marker word, tells the dog "that exact thing earned the reinforcement," which lets the dog learn behaviors quickly and precisely. Karen Pryor lays the model out in Don ’t Shoot the Dog!, which is on our Recommended page. You can motivate a dog in two ways, with pain or pleasure. We use a positive reinforcement, or pleasure, approach in order to teach or modify your dog's behavior. We advocate using humane methods for training your best friend.

The three Ds are duration, distance, and distraction. They are the three dimensions any behavior has to hold up against to be useful in real life. A dog who sits for two seconds next to the handler in a quiet room has the behavior. A dog who sits for thirty seconds across the room with another dog walking past has it proofed. We build duration first, then distance, then distraction, and we never combine more than one new D at a time.

Group class versus private in-home

The group format works for most dogs. The cost per session is lower, the practice around mild distractions is built into the format, and the structure of a weekly class keeps the household accountable. Some dogs do not fit the group format, either because the dog cannot focus in a group environment or because a behavioral issue tied to the home is the actual problem. Those cases route to private in-home lessons, where the same techniques run one on one in the dog's environment.

The 21-day Full Specialized Training is a different shape entirely. The dog lives with Scott for three weeks while a custom protocol gets built. That format fits dogs whose households cannot run the homework, dogs whose home environment carries triggers the training has to reset around, and cases where the owner wants the foundation built before they take it over.

After Basic Obedience

Most dogs who finish the six weeks have foundations that are ready to be specialized. Recall Classes are the natural next step for households who want off-leash reliability on Tahoe trails, and the recall class lists Basic Obedience as a real prerequisite because recall against real distractions builds on a dog who already has a name response and a stay.

Households starting younger than five months work through Puppy Kindergarten first and graduate into Basic Obedience when the dog hits age. Households dealing with reactivity, separation anxiety, or a newly-adopted rescue layer the relevant pillar in alongside the obedience work. Reactive dog training covers sub-threshold counter-conditioning. Separation anxiety training covers the panic-response protocol. Rescue dog training covers the decompression-first approach for newly-adopted dogs.

About the class

Basic Obedience runs as a six-week group class with one session per week. Households should plan on roughly fifteen minutes of homework per day between sessions. Bring a flat collar or front-clip harness, a six-foot leash, treats the dog will work for, and your dog. Group classes are offered on a limited basis. Contact us for current dates.

Owners ask these first

Short answers below. Cross-cutting questions on cost, group versus private format, and what we use for training have canonical answers on the FAQ page.