Daily updates during board and train

The heart of every update is the training. It names the skills your dog worked on that day from its program's list: for Foundation, basic obedience and leash skills, place, stay and recall, impulse control, and crate and household manners; for Advanced, the same in week one, then distraction proofing, real-world outings, neutrality work and structured socialization in week two. Next to each skill it says how your dog did, including the parts that are still hard, because a report that only lists successes tells you very little.

Updates can also carry the details you care about most. If appetite, sleep or one particular worry matters to you, say so at drop-off and it can be covered as the stay goes on. What this page does not fix is the format. Whether your updates include photos, video clips or a written summary is confirmed when you book, so raise it at the training consult and settle it before the first night rather than discovering it on day two.

Training notes make more sense once you know how trainers raise difficulty. The AKC describes three variables, duration, distance and distraction, and advises working on one at a time and leaving distraction for last. So a stay that held for a long time on Tuesday may look shorter on Wednesday, once the trainer stepped further away or added a passing dog. That dip is planned. What you want to see across several updates is each skill holding up under a little more difficulty than before.

Expect Advanced updates to wobble at the start of week two. That is when skills leave the quiet training room for outings and busier settings, and the AKC states plainly that dogs don't generalize well: a sit learned in one place is not yet a sit everywhere. If your updates include photos or video, look at the dog as well as the result. The AKC lists whale eye, ears pinned back, a tucked tail, lip licking, yawning and looking away among the common stress signs, and any of them is worth a question.

Updates are a conversation, not a broadcast. Reply in the app's messages and the front desk passes your question to the training team. Good questions are specific: why recall worked indoors but not in the yard, whether your dog has joined a playgroup yet, what a phrase in the update means. If something genuinely worries you, such as a skipped meal or a dog that has not settled, ask straight away rather than waiting for tomorrow's update.

Some questions are best settled before the stay begins. Whether you can visit or call in during the stay is confirmed at the consult, and it is worth asking if you live close by. Families in Rockport, Gloucester, Essex and Manchester-by-the-Sea can ask whether the Pup Van, $10 each way, can bring the dog in at the start. Before any of that comes the free evaluation, on a weekday between 6:30 and 9:30 AM. The board and train page compares Foundation with Advanced.