You have a new puppy

New puppy training

Whatever your dog becomes, it's being built right now. The first six months set the foundation, or they set the problems.

Maybe you're already home with them and it's louder than you expected — the mouthing, the crate at 2 a.m., the accidents, the chewing, the advice coming at you from every direction. Or maybe you haven't picked one yet and you want to get this right from the start.

Either way, you're at the best possible time to call.

Why do the first six months matter?

A puppy isn't a small dog. It's an animal in the middle of the one window where its drives, its confidence, and its social wiring are being set.

By eight weeks the drives are already defined. With its littermates, a puppy learns bite thresholds and where it sits in the group. Then it comes home at six to nine weeks and you take that role — and everything you do from there teaches it something, whether you meant to teach it or not.

That's why puppy problems aren't really problems. Mouthing is normal. A puppy uses its mouth to explore, to play, and to work out pack order, and teething makes all of it worse. What matters is what the mouthing gets shaped into. Redirected to toys, it becomes a dog that brings you something when it's excited. Reinforced on your hands, it escalates.

The same is true of everything else in this window: house training, the crate, what your puppy learns about strangers and dogs and noise, and how much rest it actually gets. Every one of those has a right way and a default way, and the default way is what fills our behavior chapters later.

And if you haven't chosen your puppy yet, that's the single highest-leverage decision you'll make. Temperament testing before you pick tells you what you're getting. It's much easier to match the right puppy to your family than to fix a mismatch for the next ten years.

How we start your puppy

We give you the sequence, in order, for the age your puppy is right now.

First your puppy's temperament is evaluated — drives, disposition, engagement. The evaluation tells us what you actually have, which is the difference between a soft puppy that needs confidence built and a hard one that needs structure early.

Then your puppy gets a map: Part Two of the book in order — bringing them home, crate and potty training, shaping behavior, household living, mouthing, leash work, socialization, and the balance of work, play, and rest. As they mature, the obedience commands come on top of it.

We don't use an e-collar on a puppy. This stage is built with marking, rewarding, redirecting, and a schedule you can actually keep.

The finished picture is a dog that was raised right the first time, and an owner who never has to come back through one of the other doors.

20+ years · author of Building A Solid Canine · every dog is evaluated first

Two ways to start.

Bring your dog to a Saturday.

Garrett reads your dog live at the Saturday workshop in Placerville, CA — that's a Working Evaluation, $200. You get the full day, the printed workbook and the full book, and your dog's written route through it. Every dog is evaluated first. Bite histories welcome with honest disclosure.

Or we come to you.

An In-Home Session at your house, up to two hours, with the same workbook, book, and written route.