Puppy Day School Program Info

Your puppy will attend school 2 days per week on Tuesdays+Thursdays. Drop-off is 7-8:30a and pick up is 4:30-6p. You only need to supply a cute puppy and their lunch if they get one.
The cost is $550 for your first 4 weeks (8 sessions). Additional packages may be bought until your dog reaches one year old. As your puppy masters basic manners skills, we will work with them on more advanced skills and with additional distractions.
To enroll in school, first schedule an online puppy eval so we can ensure school is a good fit and discuss your goals!

Every puppy spends the afternoon in a supervised playgroup. We carefully match puppies by size, age, and temperament to ensure this is a positive, confidence building experience.
Large groups of unknown dogs, such as what is commonly found in many daycares, can be very overwhelming and even traumatizing for many puppies. We avoid this with careful introductions and keeping our playgroups to 3-4 dogs at a time. The playgroups are supervised by dog behavior experts who are able to spot subtle behaviors and intervene before any problems occur. We have a proven track record at helping scared/shy puppies come out of their shells while also teaching dogs who lack "social skills" to be more appropriate around their dog friends.
While playing, our staff are careful to only reinforce appropriate behaviors from the puppies. This means your puppy will spend the whole day practicing greeting people without jumping, not biting or mouthing, waiting at doors, and perfecting housetraining.

We take the safety of your puppy as our first priority. Our entire facility is designed with safety in mind.
We have padded flooring to protect growing joints, a double gate system to prevent escaping, a climate controlled napping area, and more.
We take disease prevention seriously. In addition to our strict vaccination protocols, we regularly sanitize the floors, toys, bowls, and crates to prevent any potential disease transmission. In addition, we have an air filtration system to reduce the risk of any airborne disease transmission.
If you have more questions about how we keep your puppy safe, be sure to ask during your evaluation!

Socialization is about more than just playing with other dogs! We want your puppy to be confident and relaxed everywhere. Our day school clients tend to be the type who take their dogs with them wherever they go; maybe the local festival, on vacation at the beach, or even just for a jaunt around the neighboorhood.
With that in mind, every puppy gets an on-leash walk with one of our trainers every day. We go to one of the several awesome socialization locations within walking distance of our facility.
During these walks your puppy is learning how to be polite in public. We train skills such as loose leash walking, polite greetings, and waiting patiently in addition to socializing your puppy around a wide variety of people, traffic, noises, surfaces, and much more.

Overtired puppies are no fun! Just like children (and adults if we are honest with ourselves), puppies often are the worst behaved when they are too tired. This usually is manifested with unwanted behaviors such as biting, mouthing, tugging on clothes, and chewing. By ensuring your puppy gets age appropriate naptimes throughout the day, we can avoid a lot of those unwanted behaviors and send you home with a satisfied, but not ill-behaved, puppy.

We take pride in teaching all of our puppies to enjoy their crates and to relax quietly and comfortably when it isn't their turn to play. We often have a whole room full of crated puppies who are all resting quietly.
We use a variety of positive reinforcement based solutions to crate issues. If you know your puppy will struggle in a crate, please let us know in your evaluation so that we can be sure to set your puppy up for success in the best way possible!

Our staff really know their stuff! You can rest assured your puppy is getting the best care and training possible.
We have a veterinarian and two trainers certfied through the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers on staff. This body is the only independent dog trainer certification examination (i.e. not associated with a for-profit training school) and demonstrates a high level of knowledge about dog training, behavior, and health.
We spend the time, energy, and resources to continually stay up to date on the most progressive knowledge in dog training. We do the hard work so you don't have to! Dog owners shouldn't have to be dog TRAINERS too!

Our certified, professional dogs trainers want to make sure that your puppy is the perfect puppy for YOU. That's why we ask questions about your lifestyle and goals during your initial evaluation. Do you want your dog to greet guests politely during your dinner parties or would you rather have a dog who can enjoy a quiet romp with you in the woods? We want to help you meet your goals.
Our curriculum starts with the basics all dogs need to know. Skills like sit, down, stay, come when called, relax on a mat, and loose leash walking. From there we work on perfecting the skills you need the most.
Not only do these training sessions teach the puppies valuable obedience skills, but they also challenge their brains in a way that physical exercise never will. Because of the addition of training sessions to your puppy's day, you can be sure you will take home a puppy that is both mentally and physically satisfied. This makes them much less likely to demonstrate those annoying puppy behaviors like barking, whining, chewing, jumping, and biting.
Many of our puppies attend school for multiple months. For these puppies, we are able to customize their training sessions teaching them fun activities such as agility, flyball, parkour, nosework and tricks. If you want a dog who knows it all, plan on having them stay for a while :-)

We want your puppy to be well-behaved without you having to nag her all the time. This means that she needs to have self control (as opposed to control imposed by the human).
We teach puppies to offer the behaviors we want (sit, down, eye contact, etc) in order to get the things they want (food, toys, the friendly squirrel on your walk). This means that instead of stealing food off your counter or stealing your clothes to get attention your puppy lays down quietly in the hopes that it will get her what she wants.
There's no need to use a harsh technique or piece of equipment to teach your puppy how to be polite! With some skill and prior planning, your puppy can be a self control master!

Your puppy needs to learn to listen to you too! As part of Puppy Day School you are given access to our Online Manners Class. This very closely follows the curriculum your puppy is learning with us at school. Work through the material we are teaching at school for maximum progress. You'll be impressed how fast your puppy will show you the skills they learned with just a little work from you!

Each day there is a report board that will tell you what skills your puppy worked on at school and who their playmates were. If they staff have any concerns about your puppy's behavior, we will be sure to address it with you as well.
Looking for additional help? We have a variety of in-person group classes that will give you some extra guidance if you find you need it.

If cost is a MAJOR barrier to access for training, please see our financial aid program here: https://www.adventureunleashed.org/financial-aid