The First Meeting

Typically I meet clients at their home for the first session. If your dog struggles with people in the home, we may meet out in the world for the first session.

The first session is about getting to know you and your dog. Where are the strengths and where are the weaknesses. Why are you struggling and why is your pup struggling. These are important things to determine as it drastically changes the path forward.

There are a few tests I do in the first session. Some you may not even notice me doing, but for the full hour I am observing your dog and seeing how they respond to certain things. I will guide you along the way and let you know what what I am seeing. I never plan to set your dog up to intentionally fail. We can test in kind ways at appropriate levels for YOUR dog to gather the information we need.

After I have observed your dog and we have discussed the issues in more details, we will talk about goals and prognosis. These are never set in stone and can change as you and your dog grow as a team but my promise is to always be transparent when I see goals that are not a good fit for the dog I see infront of me.

You will leave the first session with:

• understanding of why your dog is struggling
• clear understanding of reasonable goals
• possible routine change recommendations if applicable (small changes can have a HUGE impact)
• 1-2 training exercises you can start working on right away

Homework items will be clearly laid out and sent to you via Fetch, an easy to use portal for staying organized and connected between sessions.

Follow Up Sessions

Frequency of sessions will depend on you and your dog. Most of my clients benefit from a weekly or bi-weekly frequency to start, and then we change to monthly in the later half of the package.

Follow up sessions are 1 hour in length and we typically focus on 2-3 training exercises per session. We meet at a location that will benefit the exercises best. This may be at your home our out in the world.

As your dog learns and grows, the training we do changes. Don’t be surprised if the training exercises are completely different at the end of your training versus at the beginning. That is growth and that is what we want! This is also why training has most success when you commit to some follow up training sessions.

Between Session Support

The best success comes from solid communication. I am COMMITTED (and I really mean that) to helping you and your dog succeed. I want you to tell me when things are going well and when they are not. If they are not going well, we can make tweaks between training sessions. The last thing I want you to do is keep practicing something that isn’t working!

There are three ways we stay connected between sessions:

1. Fetch – An online portal that is the main hub for homework items, session schedules and video uploads.

2. Marco polo – A mobile app that allows for easy video messaging. It is a very easy way to ask questions or send me video of any behaviour you want me to see, or if you want feedback on homework items. This is a free app.

3. Email/Text support – If you prefer email, that works too! You can always ask questions via email. You also are welcome to text me for more emergent situations.

I strive to offer quick support to all my active clients so you can expect responses from me within 24 hours (usually much less).

End of Pack Support

For clients that choose to purchase a package, additional support is available after the completion of your package.

5 Packs

• Email support for questions.  Many questions I can give a couple tips and you are good to go, sometimes things come up where additional training is the best path forward. I will be honest if I feel this is the case for you and your dog.
• 1 month free access to my online community, Building Brilliance. This access begins the first day after your final session.

10 Packs

• Email support for questions.  Many questions I can give a couple tips and you are good to go, sometimes things come up where additional training is the best path forward. I will be honest if I feel this is the case for you and your dog.
• 3 months free access to my online community, Building Brilliance. This access begins the first day after your final session.

My Training Philosophy

There are lots of different ways to train out there and it is easy to get lost in it all.

I call myself an effective, kind trainer, or fear free.

What does this mean?

1. I work with the team infront of me. That includes you because you are the one that spends the most time with your pup! The same dog living in two different homes needs a completely different training plan because that is realitity 🙂 You are a team!
2. While there are many different avenues I will use to train dogs, there are some things I won’t use. That is anything that causes pain, fear or intimidation. Why? Because there is a reason your dog acts the way they do. We want to find out what that is. Once we know why, we can find solutions that are kind and still work to fix the problem. Dogs are sentient beings and I am a big fan of treating them as such!
3. Boundaries. We may need to set them with your dog as part of the training plan, but we can do that in a kind way.

This is also a judgement free zone. If you are currently using, or have used, ecollars, prong collars or other such tools in the past, that is okay! We all love our dogs and want what is best for them. It will be my goal to guide you away from needing to use these tools but it will be judgement free.

Ready to get started?

Please purchase your desired package to get started. I accept payment via e-transfer or Stripe.

E-transfer payments can be made to erin@wagtails.training (some banking apps decline this email, if that happens please send me an email for help).

• • • 10 Pack – $1,975
    • 5 Pack – $1,125

Payment via Stripe can be accessed at the links below. A 3% process fee is added. Payment plans are available for an additional $25 per month.

IMPORTANT 

Please read if you are considering an Initial Consultation.

Most behaviour training requires follow up training to reach your goals. As such, I do not recommend the purchase of an Initial Consultation unless I indicated in a Discovery Call that this would be a good fit for you and your dog. I don’t want you to spend the money and be unsatisfied with results. I am committed to helping you and your dog thrive together, but this requires some commitment.

Initial consultations are 90 minutes in length and come with a follow up email. Single session follow ups are available afterwards for $245 per session (1 hour).

Once your purchase is made, please email me at erin@wagtails.training to set up your first session.