House Calls:

Yes, that's right, I do make house calls. Training right in your home and tailored to fit your needs. Real life situations, real life training.

This is a great choice if you have an irregular schedule or need help in only one or two areas of your dog's behavior. It is your time to work on anything you want. It can be basic commands, aggression, puppy problems, etc. Classes do not have to follow a rigid schedule, the days and times can change according to your routine. Too busy to make a class? Let me bring the class to you. Cost: Three one hour sessions for $120.00 add an additional .50 mile if you live outside a 5 mile radius of my home in South Portland.

Puppy Package:

For first time puppy owners or those who haven’t had a new edition in years. The purpose of these visits is to teach the entire family how to deal with normal puppy behaviors before they become problem behaviors in the adult dog.

Topics that will be covered are: socialization: potty training, management vs. training, and proper leadership. We will also discuss some of the basic obedience skills that you can start to teach your pup. Cost: Three one hour sessions for $120.00 add an additional .50 mile if you live outside a 5 mile radius of my home in South Portland.

Constructional Aggression Treatment:

Until now, aggression therapies have focused on the pathology of aggressive behavior. The premise is, that if the dog is exposed to a certain trigger, the response is always the same: trigger > attack. In this model, the behavior is involuntary, in short, the dog cannot help it.

The Constructional approach maintains that aggression is a learned behavior and it is persistent because it has worked in the past. In other words, if you have a dog that is fearful of other dogs and the dog has discovered that acting aggressively makes other dogs go away, that aggressive behavior becomes very reinforcing. The dog learns that aggressive behavior pays off. So, what would happen if the aggressive behavior didn't pay off?

Since the function of most aggression is to achieve distance from the icky thing (other dogs, humans, skateboards), if you can manipulate the consequences (the icky thing DOESN'T go away when the dog aggresses) then the dog will start to experiment with which behaviors actually will make the icky thing go away.

Initially, the behaviors may be very small; a sideways glance, blinking the eyes, or a head turn. The dog learns that those behaviors WILL make the icky thing go away. As a treatment progresses the dog begins to feel more comfortable, he will offer more and more alternative behaviors, building a repertoire that is more social, friendlier. The end goal for all types of aggression using these techniques is total interaction not just tolerance. Cost of treatment varies.