Foundation Camp (Board & Train)

Quick Answer

Foundation Camp is a 14-night board-and-train program for everyday manners: sit, down, stay, come, loose-leash walking, calm greetings, and settling on a place or in a crate. It costs $3,509 with suite accommodation included. After boarding, the program hands the skills to you through private lessons, DaySchool days, and Pet Parenting Classes. Dogs with reactivity, anxiety, resource guarding, or aggression need a PD360 assessment first.

What Foundation Camp Covers

Foundation Camp builds the skills of everyday life with a dog: sit, down, stay, come, loose-leash walking, calm greetings, and settling on a place or in a crate. Those skills hold up at home only when you can run them yourself, which is why the second half of the program moves to you through private lessons, DaySchool days, and Pet Parenting Classes instead of ending at pickup.

A dog that has been through the program handles the ordinary moments that used to take constant supervision. Someone knocks and your dog holds a place instead of bolting the door. A jogger passes and the leash stays loose. Your dog settles in a crate through dinner without you standing guard.

Those are observable behaviors you can test, not vague promises. How well they hold at home depends on your dog's temperament and on how consistently you run the cues and routines you were given. Every dog and every household is different.

How Camp Stacks the Reps

Dogs build reliable behavior through repetition, environment, and feedback, not through one good lesson. A camp day delivers more structured learning hours than a weekly lesson delivers in months: the same cues, the same routines, the same handling standard, with feedback on every rep. Patterns form faster when the reps stack close together.

That does not mean a dog is working for twelve straight hours. A camp day is a full day of guided structure: focused sessions with a trainer plus immersive learning alongside dogs already running the same routines. Rest and enrichment are part of the design, because a tired dog stops learning.

The phasing is how Partners Dogs works across every program. The methodology incorporates most forms of feedback for a dog and is phased by behavior and technique depending on the dog's capabilities and learning models, which is why two dogs in the same camp week rarely run the same session plan. It is the same approach behind more than 70,000 dogs trained since 1997.

Who It Fits, and Who Needs a PD360 First

Foundation Camp accepts dogs 20 weeks and older that have been fully vaccinated for at least one week before their first day. If your dog is younger, ask about the bridge option: at-home foundational work plus an online private lesson, then camp or class the week your dog qualifies.

The program is built for manners, not for significant behavior concerns. If your dog is reactive (barking or lunging at people or other dogs), too anxious to settle, guarding food, toys, or space, or has any bite history, book a PD360 assessment before you book camp dates. PD360 is $199, applied as store credit when you enroll in the program recommended for you, and it reviews your dog's real history and triggers before anyone commits to a plan. What comes out of it might be Foundation Camp, it might be Behavior Camp, and it might be something else.

Price, Deposit, and Payment Schedule

Foundation Camp costs $3,509, with suite accommodation included. That price covers:

The 14-night boarding and training phase
3.5 hours of private lessons
16 Days of DaySchool
8 Pet Parenting Classes
Parent education: the Pet Parent Guide plus on-demand videos
Your Transition Lesson, the hands-on handover session at pickup, with its 30-day home plan

A $100 deposit holds your dates. It is never refunded as cash. With 48 or more hours' cancellation notice it converts to store credit you can use toward any other program, class, or service; inside 48 hours it may be forfeited, because it is holding trainer time set aside for your dog.

For camps, 50% is due at check-in, and your balance must be $0 before your dog goes home at pickup. To spread the rest over time, compare lenders in our financing guide.

What to Pack, and What to Tell Your Trainer at Check-In

Upload proof of vaccination to your Parent Portal before check-in. Rabies, DHPP (or DAPP), and Bordetella are required. Canine Influenza and Leptospirosis are not.

Pack labeled food for the full stay, any medications with written dosing instructions, a flat or buckle collar, and a non-retractable leash.

Then tell your trainer what normal looks like for your dog: feeding schedule, bedtime routine, food sensitivities, whatever helps them settle on the first night. Come with a short list of the house rules you actually want trained, too: which doors your dog may not charge, whether the couch is allowed, what mealtime should look like. Camp trains what you ask it to train, and check-in is where that gets set. The more your trainer knows on day one, the less of the stay gets spent learning it the hard way.

The Four Stages Inside a Camp Stay

Teaching

The first days set the language your dog will use for the rest of the program: reward markers, name response, clean leash handling, a crate routine, and place (a defined station such as a bed, mat, or cot where your dog stays until released). Sessions start with trust and engagement. A dog that cannot relax between reps cannot learn efficiently, so trainers work for calm attention before they add any difficulty at all.

Reinforcing

Once sit, down, stay, come, loose-leash walking, and calm greetings come easily in a quiet setup, trainers make the right choice worth repeating and begin adding light duration and distraction: holding a stay a beat longer, walking past a mild distraction, waiting at a threshold before the release. The target is a first-or-second-cue response with clean mechanics on the human end of the leash.

Proofing

Later in the stay, the same cues move to real triggers: other dogs at a distance, people walking past, doors opening and closing, ordinary household traffic. Difficulty rises one variable at a time, never all at once. This is also where your own handling starts to matter, which is exactly what the Transition Lesson is for.

Maintenance

Maintenance starts at pickup and keeps going from there. Your 3.5 hours of private lessons, 16 Days of DaySchool, and 8 Pet Parenting Classes are built into the program so a coach sees your handling on a regular basis and catches the small habits (a late marker, a tight leash, a cue repeated three times) before they quietly undo two weeks of work.

A Typical Camp Day

A typical day alternates short training blocks with rest and enrichment. Mornings open with a potty break, an engagement warm-up, and breakfast. Mid-day is cue work plus place or crate duration, with brief supervised exposure to other dogs. Afternoons run real-life setups, door greetings, thresholds, and recall in the yard, and end in an enrichment chew. Evenings are a walk, dinner, and a settled bedtime.

Trainers track appetite, stool, sleep, and stress signals daily and set the pace off your dog's energy, not a fixed script. If anything concerns them they contact you, and for health issues they coordinate with your veterinarian as appropriate.

You see how each day went in a daily Pupdate: a short note written in your dog's voice with photos or video from that day's work, plus periodic trainer notes on progress and sticking points.

The Transition Lesson and Your 30-Day Plan

The Transition Lesson is the hands-on session at pickup where the work moves from your trainer to you. It is yours, so record it on your phone if that helps you review it later.

Practice the cues yourself while your trainer watches: leash handling, marker and reward timing, your release word, and the household routines you flagged at check-in, with your trainer correcting your mechanics as you go. Ask which two or three things are most likely to slip at home and write those down.

You leave with a 30-day home plan of short daily reps on exactly those cues and routines.

Your First Weeks at Home

Keep the first week boring on purpose. Same room, same leash, same short reps, before you test anything at the front door or on a busy sidewalk.

Your 30-day home plan is the spine: five to ten minutes most days, on the specific cues and routines your trainer flagged at pickup. Short and frequent beats long and occasional. Keep the shape of each session the same so your dog knows what is coming: warm up with something your dog already does well, work the current level for a few reps, make one deliberate step up in difficulty, then release and let the session end on a win. Raise difficulty in the order the stages use: duration first, then distance, then distraction, then a new environment. Changing two of those at once is how a reliable cue turns unreliable.

Progress on what your dog is doing, not on the calendar. Spread your DaySchool days and Pet Parenting Classes across the weeks instead of spending them all early, so you still have coached eyes on your handling once the novelty wears off and the old habits start testing you.

Expect some backsliding along the way. It is normal while your dog reads a new environment and a new handler. Shorten the reps, cut the distractions for a few days, and pay generously for correct responses while you rebuild. Then check the usual culprits: a cue repeated three times before the dog moves, a release word that changes wording every time, a leash held tight enough to make loose-leash walking impossible. Book a DaySchool day or a private lesson and let a coach watch you work. Handling differences are the common reason a behavior that was solid at pickup goes soft at home.

A few habits keep the plan on track:

One release word, forever. Pick "okay" or "let's go" and stop changing it. A cue with no clear ending is a cue your dog learns to guess at.
Practice where it is boring first. A quiet room is where a cue gets solid. The front door and the sidewalk are where it gets tested, and testing early is how good work gets undone.
Read the Pupdates for the wording, not only for the photos, then use your trainer's exact cue words at home. Matching the words and the timing saves your dog from learning the same behavior twice.
Pay well, then fade. Reinforce generously through the first week home, then move to intermittent praise and treats once a cue is reliable again.
Bring problems to a coach early. One conversation at a DaySchool drop-off costs you nothing extra. Three weeks of rehearsing a small handling error costs a great deal more.

If Your Dog Has Bitten, Do Not Test It at Home

Do not set up a situation at home to see whether it happens again. Keep your dog away from the trigger, manage the space, and let a professional structure any evaluation. The PD360 assessment is where that happens.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Foundation Camp, in plain English?

Foundation Camp is our board-and-train program for everyday life skills. Your dog spends 14 nights at the school working on sit, down, stay, come, loose-leash walking, calm greetings, and settling on a place or in a crate. After boarding, the program shifts to private lessons, DaySchool days, and Pet Parenting Classes, so you learn the handling that makes the results hold at home. Throughout the boarding phase you get a daily Pupdate: a short photo or video update written in your dog's voice.

How much does Foundation Camp cost, and what's included?

Foundation Camp is $3,509, with suite accommodation included. That covers the 14-night boarding and training phase, 3.5 hours of private lessons, 16 Days of DaySchool, 8 Pet Parenting Classes, parent education (the Pet Parent Guide plus on-demand videos), and your Transition Lesson with a 30-day home plan.

How do the deposit and payment schedule work?

A $100 deposit holds your dates for most reservations. It is never refunded as cash. With 48 or more hours' cancellation notice it converts to store credit you can use toward any other program, class, or service; inside 48 hours it may be forfeited, because it is holding trainer time set aside for your dog. For camps, 50% is due at check-in, and the balance must be $0 before pickup. To spread the rest over time, compare lenders in our financing guide.

What happens at the Transition Lesson?

The Transition Lesson is the hands-on session at pickup where the work moves from your trainer to you. You practice the cues yourself: leash handling, marker and reward timing, your release word, and the household routines you asked for at check-in, with your trainer correcting your mechanics as you go. You leave with a 30-day home plan of short daily reps. Record the lesson on your phone if you want something to check yourself against later.

How is Foundation Camp different from Behavior Camp?

Foundation Camp targets everyday manners: pulling, jumping, inconsistent recall, trouble settling. It suits puppies and adolescents well. Behavior Camp is built for significant behavior concerns such as reactivity, anxiety, resource guarding, or a bite history, and it runs 21 nights at $6,244 against Foundation Camp's 14 nights at $3,509. If you are not sure which one fits, a PD360 assessment reviews your dog's history and triggers and gives you a specific recommendation.

What if my dog regresses after coming home?

Some backsliding is normal while your dog adjusts to a new environment and a new handler. Shorten your reps, cut distractions for a few days, and reward generously while you rebuild. If a cue that was solid at pickup keeps slipping, use a DaySchool day or a Pet Parenting Class and have a coach watch you handle your dog in person.

Behavior Camp: the board-and-train path for dogs working through reactivity, anxiety, resource guarding, or aggression.
PD360 Assessment: the intake review that decides between Foundation Camp and Behavior Camp.
Private Lessons: one-on-one coaching when you want reps beyond your included hours.
Pet Parenting Group Classes: keep building manners with a coach once your included classes are used.
Training Financing & Payment: lender options and how payments are structured.

Hold your Foundation Camp dates now and start closing the gap on everyday manners.