At A Happier Home Dog Pros, our approach to dog training is reward and relationship-based.

Reward-based training means communicating to your dog when he or she has performed a wanted behavior and offering a reward for that behavior. Relationship-based training is a style and philosophy based on empathy towards dogs instead of the (out-of-date) method of using fear to achieve desired training results.

Often when a dog is first trained, he/she is taken to a large facility, such as a (big box) pet store, and soon after asked to master very difficult skills – such as sitting in the middle of a noisy and crowded store – without any regard to what the dog may be feeling at that moment. This situation often elicits intense emotional responses in dogs – which are counterproductive to learning* and can set training back weeks or months -if not indefinitely!

*When a dog is mentally stimulated and encouraged to think, he/she will be primed and ready to learn. In this state, emotional responses – like fear – will be minimized.

We do not train dog-aggressive, human-aggressive, protection or service dogs.