Week 1
Focus: Engagement • Name Recognition • Loose Leash Walking on a Long Line
Engagement Training
Goal: Teach your dog that paying attention to you—instead of people, animals, or distractions—is rewarding and
worth repeating. Engagement is the foundation of all other training. When your dog learns that focusing on you
leads to good things, they’ll begin to redirect their energy away from distractions and onto you.
Your Role as the Handler: Stay vigilant and protect your dog from overwhelming situations or triggers. Build trust by helping them feel safe and successful in training sessions.
Strategies for Success
Pre-Training Prep
• Kennel your dog for at least 2 hours before training to ensure they are rested and bored.
• Your dog should be hungry and motivated to work.
• No socializing: Do not allow people or animals to approach your dog during your session.
• Use high-value, soft, easy-to-swallow food that your dog loves, like Redbarn, BilJac, Happy Howie’s, or Vital Fresh Pet.
• If motivation is low or your dog has dietary restrictions, use meal portions for training.
• Measure your dog’s meal, place it in your training pouch, and use it for engagement exercises.
Engagement Exercise
• Stand still and hold the leash firmly while waiting for offered eye contact.
• Do nothing—no talking, leash jiggling, or pocket rustling.
• The moment your dog offers unsolicited eye contact, mark it (“YES!”) and start your reward event. Deliver 7–15
rapid treats in a row while your dog maintains focus.
• Add excitement by moving AWAY from your dog.
• Keep one hand feeding while reloading with the other.
• Freeze when your dog disengages—wait for focus to return before rewarding.
Name Recognition
• Say your dog’s name once.
• When they look at you, mark (“YES!”) immediately.
• Offer a treat and praise warmly.
• Practice in low-distraction areas before moving to more difficult environments.
• Keep sessions short (2–3 minutes) and frequent throughout the day.
Loose Leash Walking on a Long Line (15 ft)
Purpose: Teach your dog to walk calmly on a loose leash while maintaining awareness of you.
• Hold the end of the leash firmly with a “thumb lock” grip.
• Keep a consistent leash length—do not reel in or let out slack.
• Walk continuously, rewarding your dog while in motion on the trainer-recommended side.
• Avoid areas with distractions or hazards (people, dogs, etc.).
Week 2
Marker Training
Marker training means using designated words or sounds to “MARK” the correct behavior when training our dog.
In our system of training, we use two markers: “good” and “yes”.
“Good” is our duration marker. It tells your dog they are doing the right thing and should continue doing it as you bring them their reward. For example, we ask our dog to sit, say “good” to indicate they did sit, but expect them to stay seated as we deliver the food.
“Yes” is our terminal marker. It tells your dog they did the behavior correctly, but allows them to end it. For example, if we ask our dog to sit and mark it with “yes,” the dog may get up to collect their food reward.
Why do markers matter? Clear marker training allows us to better communicate with our dogs!
Settle Exercise
This exercise teaches leadership, acceptance, and patience. It gives your dog an opportunity to learn to self-soothe and relax by lying down on their own. Complete this exercise for at least 30 minutes each day for the next 30 days to see major improvements in calm behavior.
To begin, sit on or step on your dog’s leash so they only have enough slack to lie down. Do not give a command—this is not a ‘down-stay.’ Your dog should wear a fitted collar attached to a six-foot leash. They should not have enough leash to wander. Don’t get up and leave your dog back-tied. You are required to be present during the entire exercise. Your dog may get up and lie down several times during this exercise, but they must lie
down at least once during the 30-minute period, or you need to keep sitting. There is no maximum duration for this exercise. If you want to sit for longer than 30 minutes, or need to because your dog hasn’t gone down, feel free.
Ignore your dog for the entire exercise. Ignoring your dog means don’t look at, touch, or talk to your dog. Just relax, and your dog will too. The first few days may be challenging. Stay calm and consistent. If your dog barks, digs, or chews, correct the behavior calmly without frustration. With practice, your dog will begin to accept and even enjoy the Settle.
Once they can relax easily at home, practice in new environments like your porch or a quiet park.
Sit with Leash Pressure
With slack in the leash, say “Sit” and count to two. If your dog sits, mark (“yes!” if you want them to get back up, “good” if you expect them to hold it) and reward. If they don’t sit, apply gentle upward pressure on the leash. If needed, guide their rear into a sit with your other hand. Praise but do not reward sits that required physical help.
The goal is 10 successful, independent sits per day.
Luring Down
Sit on the floor with your dog. Hold food to their nose and slowly move it toward the ground so they follow it into a down position. Mark and reward when they reach the position. If they hesitate, reward smaller steps—such as lowering their head or bending elbows—until they can perform the full down comfortably.
Week 3
Adding Duration to Sit and Down Stay
Begin practicing duration in your sit and down stays. Start by taking one step in front of your dog and counting to ten, then return to heel position. Wait one second, then tell your dog to heel. The next day, practice taking two steps and waiting for twenty seconds. See how far you can progress by the end of the weekend.
Always return to your dog from a stay—do not call them to you.
Leash Walking
During leash walking, practice keeping your dog in heel position by rapidly changing directions in the equal and opposite direction of wherever your dog wants to go. If they go left, you go right. If they slow down, you speed up.
If they want to get ahead, pivot away from them. Reward with food in the correct position.
Heel with Sits and Downs
If your dog’s heel work is going well, you may begin adding sits and downs during your training walks. Incorporating obedience behaviors into your walks helps reinforce focus and accountability.
Training Walk Guidelines
Only walk your dog for training purposes this week, or use a long line to allow freedom without pulling. No pulling on the leash this weekend
Week 4
HELP YOUR DOG BE GOOD.
We know you are excited to see what your dog is capable of after training, but neither of you are ready to test the limits just yet.
Have your training equipment on and ready to go! YES, EVEN IN THE HOUSE.
Crate or contain your dog when ever they aren’t directly supervised. Remove the training equipment when unsupervised, and before bed.
Your dog should have limited unsupervised freedom in the house for the next two weeks, minimum. Whenever your dog is directly supervised, he should be wearing (dragging) a leash and wearing his prescribed training collar.
Your dog needs clear rule enforcement, routine, training practice and affection (in that order).
We want the first two weeks post-training to be an EASY TRANSITION and FULL of SUCCESSFUL REPETITIONS OF EACH COMMAND.
***For the first two weeks, utilize LOW distraction environments (back yard, quiet neighborhood parks, etc.) Avoid ‘trigger’ situations that will challenge your dog.***
Dogs can tell when their handler is unprepared or uncertain, and they will test you. You must mentally prepare to treat your outings with your dog as TRAINING TIME for at least the next two weeks!
Freedom is earned by a dog demonstrating, long-term, that they are non-destructive, fully house trained, and relaxed when unattended. If your dog is having accidents, chewing up stuff, counter surfing, etc… THEY ARE NOT READY. Each set-back you have is like starting over.
Timeline: We recommend you schedule at least 1 private lesson to get adequate coaching before attempting environments like busy parks, dog stores etc. High distraction environments require that the human is VERY confident in their expectations of their dog, and their equipment use. Your reaction-time, reward timing, and leash handling should feel natural and comfortable. Your expectations of behavior should be well established. Have a plan. You need to decide what the answer is ahead of time, not while your dog is doing it.
Is jumping on people allowed?
Are you prepared to take action if your dog jumps on somebody?
Are furniture privileges allowed?
Dogs do not understand ‘grey areas’ and need
black and white boundaries.
More challenging situations should be introduced SYSTEMATICALLY. Rate each environment or distraction on a scale of 1 to 10. Make sure you are having success progressively, at each level before you increase the difficulty. Until you can react to your dog’s behavior without hesitation, understand how and when to use your equipment, and are capable of reading your dog’s body language to prevent mistakes, you are not ready for over stimulating environments, or total off leash. We promise we will help you get there as soon as possible!
Training vs Management, and Strategies for Creating a Well-Behaved Dog
Training provides us with obedience skills we can use that are incompatible with unwanted behaviors. Training does NOT change who a dog is genetically, and does not change their personality or desires. Training only works if a dog is supervised and under the control of their handler.
Management prevents a dog from being able to perform unwanted behaviors via supervision, limiting freedom,
using a crate, barricades, dog runs, etc. to control their behavior.
It is important to both respect our dogs for the animals they are, and help them navigate our very human world safely. Learn to think like a dog trainer by asking what your dog DOES know and how that skill could counteract what your dog is trying to do instead. We must teach incompatible behaviors to eliminate problem behaviors.
How do we minimize unwanted behaviors? Training and management!
What ever dog’s rehearse, becomes a HABIT. We need to prevent counter surfing, trash diving, jumping on people, barking excessively and pulling on the leash from becoming HABITUAL.
Sometimes we can break the cycle by using a COMMAND. (HEEL on leash, SIT to be petted, by example) In other circumstances, we need to use MANAGEMENT to break the cycle.
Be proactive, not reactive. Anticipate your dog’s behavior and interrupt the cycle! Don’t let your dog have the
opportunity to practice behavior you don’t like.
Management controls the environment in a way that blocks the ability to rehearse the wrong behavior.
Examples:
A dog won’t bark out of a window they can’t access or see out of
A dog can’t dig out your newly planted garden if it’s contained in a dog run
A dog can’t jump on people if you are stepping on the leash
A dog can’t get in the trash if it’s confined in its crate
Additionally, we can create a dog who LOVES TO DO THE RIGHT THING, by creating value for it with the use of high value food rewards, praise, and play.
TRAINING is the use of incompatible behaviors to eliminate problem behaviors. Training does not change your dog’s preferences, personality or desires. Training allows us to get more control of our dogs by interrupting their thought process with a task.
What COMMANDS does your dog know and how can that skill could counteract what your dog is doing that you find undesirable? The fastest path to a well-behaved dog is to create habits through training and management. Not being able to visualize what your dog is supposed to be doing and getting lax with expectations will cause massive regression, quickly.
Most dogs start training with a pretty severe deficit! We cannot undo years of rehearsal in 3 or 4 weeks. This is why it is critical that your will for good behavior is stronger than your dog’s will to rehearse bad behavior. We need to use a combination of management and training to reach our goals.
As we move through training, it is critical that you address issues with the following process:
1. Identify the problem behavior
2. Identify the Command that in incompatible with the problem behavior
3. Proactively use the Command
4. Apply the consequence following (or not following) the command.
As your dog settles back into “normal” life, please keep us updated on any issues you may have. We need to tackle set backs as they occur, not when they become unbearable. Our programs come with many resources to help you succeed but communication is key. Failure to address concerns in a timely manner may cause serious regressions in the training, and we want you to protect your binvestment.
DO:
Utilize your follow up lessons
Refer back to your written homework assignments and this packet
Text or email us with questions regarding the training
DO NOT:
Delay contacting us due to a busy schedule or embarrassment in your dog’s behavior
Get frustrated and “give up” on particular areas of training
Push yourself or your dog too quickly
We are excited to help you transition your dog back into home life. The training journey doesn’t end here… this is
just the beginning! We are here for you and want you to succeed.
We offer boarding for graduates to maintain skills and provide a safe “home away from home” at $75/night. Refresher Training runs $125/night and includes daily training sessions, regular field trips, and playtime.
