Puppy School and Dog Training in Waterloo

Our training comes in five forms.

Puppy School: four weeks of small group class for puppies up to 16 weeks, with home sessions and the online course from Silver up.

Private Puppy Training: the same levels, run in your home with no group class, and an extra home session at every level instead.

Puppy Orientation Session: one 90 minute session in your home for a new puppy, at $375.

Adult Dog Training and Behaviourism: one to one sessions in your home for dogs 32 weeks and older, at $465 per 90 minute session.

Never Guess Again: our online course on its own, with a live Zoom Q&A every week.

Puppy school runs at six venues: Paddington, Edgecliff, Neutral Bay, Zetland, Alexandria and Marrickville. Start dates vary by venue, so check the puppy school dates page. Everything else happens in your own home, across Sydney.

One to one training happens in your home, anywhere in Sydney within roughly a forty five minute drive of the Harbour Bridge. That covers the:

• Inner City and City Centre
• Eastern Suburbs
• Inner West
• Lower North Shore
• Upper North Shore
• Northern Beaches
• Hills District
• Western Sydney
• South Sydney and St George

Group puppy school runs at six fixed venues within about eight kilometres of the Harbour Bridge: Paddington, Edgecliff, Neutral Bay, Zetland, Alexandria and Marrickville. All six are taking bookings. See the puppy school dates page for current dates.

Start as early as you can. We begin working with puppies from eight weeks, at home, on toileting, biting, sleep and settling.

Group puppy school starts once the second vaccination is done, which is usually somewhere in the twelve to fourteen week range and most commonly at twelve weeks. Classes run for four weeks, one session a week, capped at ten puppies and matched by size.

The socialisation window stays open until 24 weeks, which is the same as six months, so you have a real but limited run at it. Most of the problems that show up at six or twelve months are preventable if you start before they start.

Puppy School runs up to 16 weeks. If your puppy is already older than that, the work moves into Puppy Training instead, and it is still well worth doing.

There are four levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Every level includes the same four weeks of group puppy school, lifetime community access and 24/7 digital trainer support.

• Bronze is the group class. Your 24/7 digital trainer support uses our free guides.
• Silver adds one session in your own home, one month of the online course, and one month of asking questions in the community, answered by Luke.
• Gold has three home sessions, three months of the course, phone and text support for three months and a weekly Zoom Q&A.
• Platinum has ten home sessions, six months of the course, priority phone and text for six months, a kick-off call, a breed 4 week guide, the video library and training equipment. It is limited to five clients at a time.

From Silver up, your digital trainer support knows your course. Most families choose Silver.

Yes. Private Puppy Training is our puppy program run entirely in your home, with no group class. Every level gets one extra one to one session instead: Bronze has one, Silver two, Gold four and Platinum eleven.

On Puppy School, home sessions start at Silver. Silver has one, Gold three and Platinum ten. Bronze is the group class on its own.

If you choose Private Puppy Training for a young puppy, we will ask how your puppy is being socialised outside our sessions. Socialisation is not optional at that age, and a private program that quietly drops it does more harm than good.

Yes, and it's usually the better outcome. From Silver upwards our puppy school bundles both by design, so you're not choosing between the two. Bronze is the group class on its own.

No honest trainer can promise a specific behaviour or result. Puppy development and dog behaviour vary a lot from dog to dog and owner to owner.

What we can promise is the support, and the Do The Work Guarantee. If you do everything we ask and you are not happy, you get a full refund of your program fee. It covers Silver, Gold and Platinum on Puppy School and Private Puppy Training, every Adult Dog Training session, and the Never Guess Again online course.

Doing the work means attending your sessions, messaging us and trying our suggestions, working through the course on Skool, and keeping a training log. Never Guess Again has its own simpler conditions. The full conditions are on our terms and conditions page. The guarantee is on top of your rights under Australian Consumer Law.

Absolutely not. If you want a method like that I suggest you call the 1980s, go back there and never get a dog.

We teach Relational Leadership, built on calm and consistent communication. The aim is a dog who chooses to look to you when something happens, rather than a dog who has been made to. No pain, no fear, no force, ever, and that is not a marketing line. Anything that works through intimidation gets you a quieter dog for a fortnight and a worse problem six months later.

Classes are capped at ten puppies and matched by size, so it is safe and there is room to actually work.

Medicare doesn't cover puppy training. Some pet insurance policies have a wellness or enrichment component that may include a contribution toward training, but this varies significantly by policy. Check your specific policy documents or contact your insurer. It's worth raising when you first take out a policy, as some providers include training contributions that policyholders don't know about.