2 Week Puppy Imprinting Sleep Away Camp $2600*
(for pups 2.5 to 5 months only)
"The best start you could ever give your best friend"
Flash is your go-to puppy specialist in the cities of Bend and Denver!
Did you just get a puppy from a shelter or breeder and are concerned you’re already seeing some bad habits? Is crate training or house breaking not going so well? Let us do the dirty work for you! This program is all about preparing you and your best friend for the ultimate success in life. Your pup will learn a boat-load of life skills that you simply must maintain to have the adult dog of your dreams. The “critical imprinting” period is THE most important few weeks of your puppy’s life. We cannot go back in time when it comes to imprinting. What happens in these few short weeks will forever affect your dog’s adult behavior.
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Psychological health is just as important as physical health in our dogs! The time between 8-16 weeks is where we can introduce your puppy to as many new sights, sounds, and experiences as absolutely possible. It is so much easier to mold a young puppy than to fix learned, practiced behaviors in an adult dog. Investing in your puppy’s training now can prevent so much stress and confusion in the future. This program is designed to give your puppy THE very best start possible.
Our Puppy Imprinting Sleep Away Camp includes:
- Introduction to: name recognition, "sit", "down", "place", "come", and leash walking
- House breaking
- Crate training
- Socialization with dogs and people
- Riding calmly in the car
- Calm feeding ritual
- Nail clipping
- Bathing
- Ear cleaning and grooming
- Medical handling
- Separation anxiety prevention
- Tether training
- Sound desensitization to thunderstorms, fireworks, trucks, etc. via our audio program
- Confidence building through object climbing, surface discovery, and body awareness
- Real world exposure on field trips to things that are typically triggers for dogs like: bikes, skateboards, screaming children, loud equipment, etc
- Video updates on your puppy's progress through email and social media
- (2) follow up sessions
OSKAR PRACTICES THE PLACE COMMAND OUT ON A TRAINING HIKE.
Puppy Day Camp Program
Mon-Fri for 2 weeks $2000
Our Puppy Day Camp Program is our second most comprehensive program for your pup! This day camp is for folks who want their puppy to be learning skills all day while they are at work. Daycare and “puppy play” classes can be scary and over whelming for a young pup. Instead, our Day Camp is tailored around YOUR puppy’s needs. There will be no rude, pummeling, inappropriate dogs making your pup defensive. We mindfully select playmates that match your pup’s energy so every experience is a good experience. Playtime comes after training time as a great life reward and then your pup is ready for successful downtime in his crate. Your pup’s day will be a rinse and repeat cycle of structured, educational experiences. This program includes all the features of our Sleep Away Camp, but you come and pick up your pup after work!
Puppy Starter Program
$800
If you want to start your relationship with your puppy off right, it’s all about creating good habits right from the start! This program consists of (4) 1 hour training sessions at our training location. We will go over all of the basics and I will make you your pup’s greatest teacher. We will do hands on exercises that you can video tape to practice again later. Your puppy will have breaks in between the exercises while we discuss relevant topics. In this program we will cover:
GIGI LEARNS TO BE CALM ON CUE, EVEN WHILE OTHER DOGS AND PEOPLE PASS BY.
- Confidence building during critical imprinting window
- Crate training
- Crate/room/house breaking
- Loose leash walking
- Name recognition
- Tether training
- Recall
- Basic handling/nail clipping/bathing
- Separation anxiety prevention
Exposing puppies to our world is great, but it must be done properly. It’s not just about the exposure, but ensuring that the puppy is happy about the experience. Exposure alone is not enough to teach the pup to enjoy the experience and seek it out in the future. We must use food and toy drive to TEACH your pup that this weird, loud stuff is super fun and produces tasty food… CONSISTENTLY. During our Puppy Imprinting Program we will lay the foundation for you to enjoy a happy, confident, adult dog. We take advantage of every opportunity to help mold your pup’s mind. EVERY DAY COUNTS! Our Puppy Imprinting Program is a foundation that your dog will use and depend on for life. Go ahead and fill out our client questionnaire to get started!
Puppy Socialization
There seems to be this popular notion out there that puppies must only play with other puppies. Is this adorable to watch? Of course it is. Is it necessarily healthy? Nope. Think about it this way: How much learning would your child accomplish if the teacher of the class was a child? Yes, there is SOME benefit to kids being social with one another, but who is actually leading the class? Who is teaching the true life lessons? Not other children. An appropriate social setting for puppies has a healthy adult role model to show the next generation how to be in the world. It is more important that your puppy learns from confident, appropriate, adult dogs, rather than other puppies. Socially well versed adult dogs know how to “handicap” themselves to match the play of puppies or smaller dogs, while still being able to give healthy feedback to a young pup who is leaning the ropes of life. Don’t worry, we have a few on staff!
Additionally, socialization does not need to involve 10 other dogs. How do you meet people? One at a time or 10 at at time? Trying to have a conversation and getting to know 10 people at one time is stressful, confusing, and frantic. This is the way a lot of big box businesses offer “puppy socialization” classes;
Where the pups are just running all over the place, pummeling, and irritating each other. There is no order and no adult dog to appropriately correct behavior. This and other high volume environments like dog parks are a sure way to make your puppy dislike being around other dogs. I have seen this MANY times over the years. A four-month-old puppy comes for daycare and is so overwhelmed, that within 2 to 4 months, will just sit in the corner and snap at every dog that walks by. Some dogs say, “The more, the merrier.” Most dogs end up acting defensively around new dogs, because they were bombarded with too many dogs in their face when they were younger. Making a puppy go to these places over and over again has had far more negative consequences, than positive in my experience. How would you like it if you were forced to go to a bar or dance club multiple days a week and have people constantly coming up to you, trying to dance even though you were not in the mood?
Think of how pushy others can be. You would be irritated, completely sick of it, and wanting to stay home. Meeting one or two people at a time is easy. It’s normal, natural, and far less stressful. Healthy socialization isn’t about numbers, it’s about the quality of the interactions and relationships. Your puppy will build a broad social skill set by having pleasant experiences with other dogs at the pace that suits him/her. Lack of social exposure is something that can create similar issues in your dog. Fear and insecurity can essentially be created from lack of exposure or from inappropriate exposure. Creating a healthy, custom tailored social experience for your puppy during its critical imprinting period, is part of the service we specialize in.
Whether from a rescue or breeder, your puppy should stay with its mother and litter mates until 8 to 10 weeks of age. This time is so important. This is when puppies learn “bite control.” Nursing mom too hard will lead to corrective communication. If the pup puts too much pressure on her body, she will respond by biting the puppy to let him know, “hey, that hurts me.” A similar type of communication will take place between litter mates. When the pups are playing and one uses too much pressure in play, the pup on the receiving end will yip, to let the other pup know that his bite in play was too strong. This initial tactile communication is essential for any dog to learn how to speak “dog.” At the 8-10 week mark your puppy is ready to leave the nest and start a new life with you! Since the first 3 weeks of critical imprinting must take place with the litter mates and mother, we only have a few weeks left to lay the blueprints of foundation in your puppy’s brain forever.
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What happens in this window of time will forever affect your dog’s adult behavior. This time between 8-16 weeks is where we can introduce your puppy to as many new sights, sounds, and experiences as absolutely possible. This is the age that you can send your puppy for imprint training. Just as with every dog here, we train and socialize at the pace the puppy is comfortable with. This prevents the feeling of being put into a situation requiring self defense. Making sure your puppy is well guided in social settings at this critical imprinting stage is imperative to its social comfort as an adult.
In addition to helping your pup create a vast social skill set, we can get your puppy used to any unique aspect of your lifestyle. Whether you live with chickens or other livestock, enjoy outdoor sports/activities like: bike riding, fishing, kayaking, boating or camping, we can customize your puppy’s training to prepare him for life with YOU!