Who trains my dog during board and train?

Every Dogtown training program, board and train included, is led by Gabriella Pope, known in the building as Gabby. You meet her first, at the short assessment that follows the training form, where she chooses between Foundation, Advanced and the other programs and writes the plan around the reason behind your dog's behavior. Her published background is a B.S. in Biochemistry, more than ten years of hands-on work with behaviorally complex dogs, work with Autistic youth and fostering dogs through Cape Ann Animal Aid.

Day to day, the training team works under that plan. What this site does not publish is a roster: the names of the other trainers, or how a week's training blocks are divided between them and Gabby. Those are fair questions, and the answers vary with the dates you book. Ask at the assessment who will run most of your dog's sessions, who writes the daily update and who will coach you at the go-home lesson, and expect a direct reply.

Karen Pryor's laws of shaping include a rule that answers the worry about many hands: do not change trainers in midstream; you can have several trainers per trainee, but stick to one shaper per behavior. In practice, one person builds a skill such as the recall from start to finish, while everyone else who handles the dog uses the same cue, the same marker word and the same release word, and takes care not to reward the habit being replaced.

The same rule applies once the leash comes home. Your household becomes the next set of handlers, which is why the go-home lesson hands over the exact words and signals rather than a general idea of them. If one person at home says come and another says here, or one lets the dog jump while another turns away, the dog learns that the rule depends on the person. Ask at the assessment how cue words are kept consistent across the team during the stay.