Private Lessons

Quick Answer

Private Lessons pair you one-on-one with a trainer to work on the goals that matter most in your house: loose-leash walking, recall, calm greetings, or a reliable place. A session runs $179 at the school or $279 in-home, both scheduled around trainer availability. In-home lessons cover obedience and skills only; reactivity, resource guarding, and other behavior cases start with a PD360 Assessment instead.

What a Private Lesson Is

A private lesson puts a trainer on your side of the leash, watching and coaching you instead of working your dog alone from across the room. They watch how you deliver a cue, where your marker lands relative to the behavior, and how your dog reads your body before you say a word. Then they adjust one variable at a time, reward placement, distance to the distraction, the exact word you use, until the behavior holds in your doorway and on your sidewalk, beyond the walls of a demonstration room. A group class is built to generalize a behavior around distraction. A private lesson is built for the handler mechanics and the household-specific setup a group setting cannot slow down enough to fix.

Why Cues Break Down at Home

Most dogs can already sit, lie down, or come when nothing else is happening. What breaks down is the handoff: a cue that works fine in the backyard falls apart at the front door, or a recall that holds with no one watching gets ignored the second a rabbit crosses the yard. That gap is rarely about the dog's intelligence. It is almost always about timing, criteria, and the specific layout of wherever the behavior needs to hold. A private lesson exists to close exactly that gap.

What Lessons Work On, and What They Do Not

Success in a private lesson looks like a skill that survives contact with real life: a loose leash past the mail carrier, a calm sit at the door while you reach for the handle, a recall that wins against the pull toward a squirrel. The bar is reliability while something else is competing for your dog's attention, which is a much higher bar than a clean repetition in a quiet room.

That bar is why Private Lessons, especially in-home, are built for obedience and skills goals: leash manners, recall, greetings, place/settle, impulse control, and everyday manners like door-dashing or counter-surfing. They are not the setting for behavior cases: reactivity, resource guarding, panic or severe anxiety, or any bite history. Those need the structure and safety of a school-based program instead.

At the School, or at Your Home

Private Lessons run either at the school or at your home. In-home sessions cover the same obedience and skills goals, at your trainer's discretion and within our service area, so the proofing happens in the doorway and on the sidewalk the behavior actually has to hold in.

Either format schedules around trainer availability. Neither one runs on closure holidays, and early-close days carry a limited number of slots.

Pricing

Pricing is set by session length and location:

At the school: 60 minutes, $179 (a second dog in the same session is $139)
At home: up to 90 minutes, $279 (a second dog in the same session is $209)

How a Session Is Structured

A private lesson runs through the same four stages as every Partners Dogs program, compressed into a single session and then carried forward across the ones that follow.

Teaching. The first few minutes define exactly what you are working on: the specific behavior, the marker word, and where the reward lands. A vague goal like "better on leash" becomes something concrete, like a loose leash for the first ten steps out the door.

Reinforcing. Your trainer runs you through coached repetitions, adjusting your timing and reward placement in real time so the correct choice becomes the obviously good one for your dog to make.

Proofing. Once the behavior holds in a controlled setup, the lesson moves it into context: an actual doorway greeting, a real sidewalk pattern, a place/settle with genuine distractions instead of a demonstration one. This is usually where the household-specific value of a private lesson shows up most.

Maintenance. Homework between sessions, and continued lessons where useful, keep a proofed behavior from sliding backward once old habits become rewarding again, like a dog that greets politely for two weeks and then relapses into jumping the first time a guest gets excited too.

Before Your First Lesson

On-campus lessons open up at the 20-week mark, once DHPP/DAPP, Rabies, and Bordetella have had a week to settle in; Canine Influenza and Leptospirosis stay off our required list. Our Vaccination Policy has the exact spacing and record rules. A puppy who hasn't gotten there yet still has a path forward: foundational work at home plus an online lesson holds the spot until on-campus training opens up.

Campus sessions carry two more conditions worth knowing ahead of time: seasonal parasite coverage (a vet-recommended product, active May through November) and a dog who's symptom-free walking in the door. Both get fuller treatment in General Booking Policies and Health of the Pet.

First-time clients begin with a PD360 Assessment, an online intake followed by a day of on-campus evaluation across different settings, wrapped up with a pick-up conversation where your trainer covers what they observed, refreshes your dog's PD360 score, and points you toward Private Lessons, a camp, or a class. The assessment runs $199 for a first dog, $149 if you're bringing a second, and neither amount disappears: whatever camp or membership follows, it shows up as store credit on your account. Already a client shifting into Private Lessons? Check with your trainer on whether a fresh PD360 is even needed.

A standard collar, either flat or buckle, a leash without a retractable mechanism, and whatever treats or food your dog already responds well to cover the equipment side. Your trainer may have recommended something more specific coming out of your PD360; bring that along too.

Between Lessons

Progress compounds when lessons run on a steady cadence, since each session builds criteria on top of what the last one proofed. It slows, sometimes stalls, when the homework in between goes untouched, because a trainer can raise a behavior's ceiling in an hour but your dog still lives in your house the other twenty-three. Pair the lessons with daily reps you will realistically do and the cadence carries the work forward. Treat one session a month as the whole plan and most of it leaks back out between visits.

Two or three short sessions most days beat one long one on a weekend. Five to ten minutes is enough: run the specific behavior your trainer set as homework, end on a rep your dog got right, and stop before either of you gets frustrated. Fold reps into routines you already do, like a sit before the leash goes on or a place/settle while dinner is on the stove, so practice doesn't compete with the rest of your day for time.

Expect the pace to vary by dog and by household. A behavior that holds reliably at home might need another week or two of proofing before it survives a busy sidewalk. That stretch is normal. Proofing is the stage where the calendar gets long, and needing more of it usually means the criteria are rising.

A few mechanics make that practice count. Use one word for one behavior, every time, and say it once; repeating a cue three times before your dog responds teaches your dog that the first two didn't count. Reward inside the half second your dog makes the right choice, since marking late pays for whatever came next, usually the head turn away or the step forward. If your timing feels off, that's exactly the mechanic a private lesson is built to sharpen, so bring the specific moment up with your trainer; it is a mechanics problem long before it is a dog problem. And keep sessions short enough that your dog wants another one: a frustrated ten-minute session teaches less than two focused ones split across the day.

Common Situations

Your dog struggles to focus once you're home. Home carries more competing value than a training room, so start smaller than you think you need to. Work the behavior a few feet closer, for a few seconds shorter, than where it held with your trainer, and build back up from there. Running the version that keeps failing just rehearses the failure.

A child in the house wants to help. Say so at your lesson so your trainer can rotate handlers and set age-appropriate criteria before you're guessing on your own at home.

You need to work around other dogs or people. Private Lessons are one-on-one by design. If distraction from other dogs is the goal, ask your trainer about pairing lessons with Group Classes, or with DaySchool or DayCamp for structured exposure your trainer can then build on.

You need to cancel or reschedule. A booked lesson holds a trainer's time, so tell us as soon as your plans shift. Our General Booking Policies article covers deposits, cancellation windows, and how store credit works. Private-lesson terms can differ from camp terms, so confirm what applies to your booking when you schedule it.

When a Behavior Case Needs a Different Program

Reactivity, resource guarding, panic or severe anxiety, and any bite history start on campus after a PD360 Assessment, typically trained through Behavior Camp or Transform Camp.

If something shifts mid-lesson, a dog that suddenly guards a toy, freezes at a stranger, or reacts with more intensity than your trainer expected, they will pause and talk with you about whether Private Lessons is still the right format before continuing.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many lessons will we need, and how fast will we see results?

That depends on your goals, your dog's learning history, and how consistently you practice between sessions. Expect small wins early, like cleaner leash mechanics or a faster sit, while reliability under real distraction takes ongoing reps rather than one visit.

Can lessons happen at my home?

Often, yes, for obedience and skills goals, at your trainer's discretion and within our service area. For a puppy under 20 weeks, the approved path is at-home foundational work paired with an online lesson until they qualify for campus; ask your trainer what that looks like for your dog. Behavior cases are not addressed in-home; those start on campus after a PD360 Assessment.

What's the difference between a single lesson and ongoing lessons?

A single lesson is a focused jump-start with homework attached. Ongoing lessons build criteria session over session, so a behavior that's shaky at first becomes reliable under more distance, duration, and distraction. Ask your trainer about recurring scheduling if you want that continuity built into your calendar.

Can my child participate?

Yes. Family participation is encouraged, and your trainer will rotate handlers and adjust criteria so reps stay safe and winnable for each family member.

Will my dog practice around other dogs?

Private Lessons are one-on-one. If working around dogs or people is part of your goal, your trainer can schedule on campus during busier windows, or pair lessons with Group Classes or DaySchool for structured exposure.

Are there days you don't offer private lessons?

Yes. Private Lessons are not offered on closure holidays, and scheduling always depends on trainer availability; early-close days carry limited slots. Our Holiday Hours & Seasonal Events article lists the exact dates.

What can private lessons work on?

Specific cues, everyday manners, and minor unwanted behaviors like door-dashing or counter-surfing all fit well. For behavior cases like reactivity or resource guarding, a school-based behavior program is the safer, more effective path; your trainer will point you there after a PD360 Assessment.

Where do I start if I'm brand new?

Submit a PD360 Assessment request. After we review your dog's history and goals, your trainer recommends the right starting point, Private Lessons or otherwise, and you book through your Pet Parent Portal, by phone, or at enroll@partnersdogs.com.

PD360 Assessment: the intake evaluation new clients start with, including cost and what it covers.
Behavior Camp: the school-based path for reactivity, anxiety, and resource guarding.
Transform Camp: the board-and-train option that pairs behavior work with advanced obedience in one program.
Group Classes: grade-based Pet Parenting Class curriculum for generalizing skills around other dogs and people.
Vaccination Policy: required vaccines and timing before your first visit.
General Booking Policies: how deposits, cancellations, and rescheduling work across our programs.

If handler mechanics and real-life manners are what you're after, Private Lessons build a plan around your dog and your household from the first session.