Dog Training

Meet and greets are 30 minutes long, free and MANDATORY for ALL clients wishing to do individual sessions or classes and the Intake Form must be completed and submitted 48 hours prior to the Meet and Greet. Meet and greet will be canceled if the intake form is not submitted 48 hours prior to meet and greet. 

Should a client have a visual impairment, learning disability or illiteracy, an intake form can be completed with Celeste over the phone. Intake forms won’t be completed over the phone because a client simply doesn’t want to fill it out themself. Lol 

Accuracy on intake forms is imperative for the trainer to help the human/dog team. There is no judgment on previously used techniques or history (especially aggression), as long as the client is willing to learn a kindness based approach and use safety measures for aggressive dogs, including muzzles. Techniques will be taught to teach the dog to enjoy having a muzzle. 

Meet and greets are an opportunity for trainer, dog parents and dogs to meet, get to know each other and the training approach to determine if it’s a good fit. 

• Sessions are typically 1 hour in length. Due to scheduling constraints, sessions cannot go over 1 hour. 
• Trainer reserves the right to end the session early if there are safety concerns or the dog is showing signs of distress. Rescheduling a make up session will be at the discretion of the trainer. 
• Active participation is expected from clients. I don’t train the dogs, I train the human on how to train their dog as this will have a more effective and long lasting impact. 
• There will need to be a commitment from clients to work on techniques, skills and exercises between sessions to get optimal results. Clients who don’t practice between sessions may be discharged from their program/classes.

Meet and greets will help determine if a dog is suitable for group classes and not all dogs are. Some dogs find classes too stimulating which will create a situation where the dog doesn’t learn during the class and may disrupt the other dogs from learning. If this is the case the trainer may suggest individual sessions. 

• All vaccinations required by Mountain Paws must be completed prior to Meet and Greet, even if off site sessions are being done. 
• If a dog is having an issue with aggression, it is mandatory that the dog have a vet check prior to doing a meet and greet. There are times that aggression may be caused by pain or a medical condition that the human is unaware of. In these cases, oftentimes, correcting the condition can resolve the issue whereas training will be ineffective in these cases. This helps prevent clients from spending time, energy and money paying for training that likely won’t help and will, most importantly, ease the dog's discomfort.If the dog is deemed to have no medical reason for aggression, training may proceed.

• The top priority is for the safety of both humans, dogs and members of the public. Clients are expected to adhere to safety protocols, including not putting their dog, themselves or others in an unsafe situation, such as letting their dog chase wildlife, keeping dog leashed except in yards ot fenced areas, adhering to traffic laws when crossing streets with their dog, muzzling an aggressive dog, etc. 
• Clients not adhering to safety protocols will be discharged from their program/classes.