Boarding and training is a wonderful option if your dog has become out of control, you are limited on time to train, or if you would like the initial training to be done for you. With group classes or private lessons, your dogs progress is entirely up to you, and can take several months to reach your goals with your dog. I often tell people that it will first take you at least 3 weeks to build new habits before you can expect to much progress with your dogs behavior. With boarding and training, your dog has a fresh start and ample opportunity to learn and develop instantly. It’s the most effective training you can provide for your dog in the least amount of time.

How it works:
Dog board and train programs, or doggie ‘boot camps’ are effective for several reasons. First your dog is exposed to a new atmosphere where they are challenged to think and learn alternative behaviors to the ones you don’t want. The training also consists of  several daily training sessions with a professional, and more so is able to learn simply by the normal day to day interactions of living around a trainer. Each moment of the day is structured to enhance performance and reliability. By the time they go home, they have experienced many training senerios and are able to achieve things you never thought possible.

What they learn:
The first stage of training is simply teaching your dog to develop teamwork and essential communication skills in order to receive feedback from his/her handler. We use a behavioral marking approach which allows the dog to know exactly what they have done right so they can repeat the behavior. This approach allows the trainer to work with the dogs on a ‘hands off’ basis, giving the dog the utmost advantage for learning.  All the training will also be performed mostly off-leash other than to learn leash work and maneuvering.

Your dog will learn all the essential basic obedience that is automatically part of the training agreement. These behaviors include:
Sit/stay -Dog maintains position until released
Down/stay - Dog maintains position until released
Look at me - Dog makes direct eye contact and waits for another request from the handler
Leave-it - Dog relinquishes point of focus and redirects attention to handler
Come -  Dog comes when called and ignores all distractions between point A and point B.
Let’s Go/Heel - Dog walks at your left side and maintains position until released
Wait - Dog waits behind a threshold such as a car door, gate, or doorway until released
Stop - Dog must freeze, sit and hold the position until released

Personalized Training Program
All dogs will be provided with custom fitted training program while enjoying their stay at Alaska TLC Kennels, your dog included! Because each dog and family have a unique home, lifestyle, schedules, and needs, we always integrate additional commands that will counteract any problem behaviors you may be concerned about. For example, if one of your dogs habits is to jump on people, we would also teach them “off” and “make friends,” a perfect command to tell your dog when they can greet a person or a dog.  Then again, sometimes dogs do things that are naturally cute and we capture it and turn it into a command. Trick training is also an option for the playful dog!