My friend,

Puppyhood is a mix of joy and chaos. Tiny paws, sharp teeth, big feelings. It is a time when everything your puppy experiences is teaching them something about the world, and everything you do is quietly shaping the dog they will grow up to be.

This puppy class is built to help you handle that mix with more confidence and less guesswork. Instead of just teaching party tricks, we focus on the skills and experiences that make everyday life easier and safer for both you and your dog.

What we focus on together

In class, we work on:

Life with a puppy
How to handle common puppy challenges like chewing, stealing, and overarousal in ways that build better habits instead of conflict. We talk about setting up your home, managing the environment, and helping your puppy rest, explore, and play without feeling out of control.

Using markers and building clear communication
You will learn how to use marker words (like “yes”) so your puppy understands exactly when they have done the right thing. This makes all of your training clearer and more effective, in and out of class.

Calm, focus, and “puppy zen”
We work on helping your puppy relax around distractions, settle their body, and choose calmer behavior even when there is a lot going on. This is just as important as teaching cues like sit or down.

Attention and engagement
We practice both prompted attention (responding when you ask for it) and unprompted attention (your puppy choosing to check in with you on their own). This makes everything else easier, from walking politely to greeting people.

Core skills for everyday life
We introduce and strengthen practical behaviors including:

• Get It game for recall foundations

• Sit and down

• Follow and loose leash walking

• The Name Game and reliable eye contact

• Touch (hand target) for moving your puppy calmly and giving them a clear job

Greetings, exploration, and social confidence
We help your puppy learn how to approach people, dogs, and new environments more thoughtfully, and how to explore without getting overwhelmed. This includes exposure to novel stimuli in a controlled way so experiences are positive or at least neutral, not scary.

Play, reinforcement, and relationship
We use games like “Find it,” tug, and other structured play to teach your puppy how to play with you, how to stop and start games politely, and how to earn reinforcement without getting overstimulated.

Cooperative care and handling
We work on gentle, early handling of tail, hindquarters, ears, paws, and mouth so that vet visits, grooming, and everyday care are safer and less stressful later on. We also cover object exchange to reduce conflict around stealing and to build habits of trading and letting go instead of running away with things.

How this class helps you

This class is not about creating a perfect robot puppy. It is about giving you and your dog a solid foundation so that daily life feels more manageable and so that, as your puppy grows up, you have shared skills and routines to fall back on.

You will leave with:

• Practical ways to handle biting, chewing, jumping, and stealing

• Clear training tools you can use outside of class

• A puppy who has practiced focusing, settling, and exploring safely

• Notes or handouts so you are not trying to remember everything later

If you are living with a young dog and want those early months to be less overwhelming and more intentional, this class is for you.