Why your dog should train in a home, not a kennel.

Most board and train programs run out of a facility: a building with kennel runs, a training floor and a rotating staff. The dog is taken out for sessions, then returned to a run. It can produce obedience on the training floor. It rarely produces a calm dog in your kitchen.

Dogs learn where they are

Dogs do not generalize the way people do. A sit on a training mat is not automatically a sit at your front door with the pizza guy on the other side. If a dog spends three weeks in a kennel environment, they get very good at kennel behavior. The moment they come home, the environment says “this is where the old rules apply.”

In Seth’s home, your dog practices place while dinner is cooked, waits at real doors, settles while people come and go, and rides in the car to real stores. The training environment is the same as the one they are going back to.

One trainer, a few dogs

A facility rotates staff. A home means one trainer, Seth, from day one to the go-home session, and only a limited number of dogs at a time. That is how a program stays customized instead of cookie-cutter, and how Seth knows every detail of your dog when he hands the leash back.

Structured socialization, not chaos

Socialization does not mean a free-for-all play yard. In a home with a few well-managed dogs, your dog learns to be calm and neutral around other dogs, which is what you actually want on a walk. Play happens too, appropriately and when it is earned.

We are not a high-volume, cookie-cutter training facility. Quality over quantity.

The result is what families tell us afterwards: the dog came home and was the same calm dog they saw in the videos. That transfer is the whole point of training in a home.

Written by

Seth Purdom

Owner and trainer, Best Dog University. 16+ years, 900+ dogs. About Seth