Do you train in my home after board and train?

Neither board and train program lists in-home training. Foundation, the one-week stay, ends with a go-home lesson; Advanced, the two-week stay, includes two scheduled go-home coaching lessons. Both are held with you at Dogtown, handling your own dog while the trainer coaches. Private sessions, from $94, are the published way to get more coaching after either, and they are based at our building too, where the set-ups for most problems already exist.

That does not mean the answer is always no. It means a home visit is not a published service, so we will not promise one on this page, and the right answer depends on the problem. If your dog's trouble exists only at your own address, describe it on the training form and ask directly at the consult. Gabriella Pope will tell you what she would do instead, or as well, and whether a visit makes sense for your dog.

Most problems fall into one of two kinds. Portable problems travel with the dog: pulling on the leash, jumping on people, a weak recall, no off switch, grabbing food. They can be trained anywhere, so a lesson at Dogtown transfers well as long as you practice. Fixed problems are tied to one place in your home: the doorbell, a window onto the street, the stairs, the sofa, the room where the dog is left alone.

Fixed problems need practice where they happen, but the person doing that practice is you, not a visiting trainer. The lesson gives you the cue and the method; your doorway supplies the setting. Where a fixed problem is serious, such as distress when left alone or guarding a spot in the house, say so at the consult, because those may need a different plan altogether, and that is exactly when to ask whether a home visit is possible.

The AKC's advice on board and train programs is that a facility should teach you every verbal cue and hand signal it taught your dog, and that you will need to keep training so the behavior generalizes. That is why the go-home lesson asks you to handle your own dog, and why the first week home should feel like a gentle extension of the stay. Run the new cues in the easiest room first, then the room where the problem lives, and only then on the street.

If something slips once you are home, message the front desk through the Dogtown app the same week rather than waiting for it to set. Short clips of the moment help. Then choose the follow-up by the problem: a private session for one fixed problem, Canine Campus for a dog that needs weeks of steady practice with pick-up and drop-off, or Academy days to keep training in your dog's week.