Puppy School North Shore - Neutral Bay 

Sydney's North Shore has always been a great place to raise a dog. The parks are good, the streets are walkable, and the community genuinely embraces dogs as part of everyday life. 

The Toe Beans Co Puppy School is coming to the North Shore, and we're running it at DoggieLove in Neutral Bay — 71 Military Road, a purpose-built dog care facility. Classes run on weekends, making it accessible for working owners across the Lower North Shore, Neutral Bay, Cremorne, Mosman, Kirribilli, Crows Nest, and surrounds.

We start in June 2026. Spots are limited and we expect strong demand.

Why We Chose DoggieLove as Our North Shore Venue

Finding the right venue for puppy school matters more than most people realise. The space needs to be enclosed and secure. It needs to be cleaned to a standard that protects young, partially immunised puppies. The staff need to understand dogs — not just manage a facility. And it needs to feel calm enough that a puppy arriving on their first day doesn't immediately go into overdrive.

DoggieLove on Military Road clears all of those bars, and then some.

It's a professional doggy day care that operates Monday to Friday with a team that clearly loves what they do. The facility is cleaned daily to a high standard — which for puppy school is non-negotiable. Young puppies are still building their immune systems, and the hygiene of the environment they're trained in directly impacts their safety. 

The Military Road location is also one of the most convenient access points on the Lower North Shore. Whether you're coming from Neutral Bay, Mosman, Cremorne, Crows Nest, St Leonards, or across the bridge from the city fringe, the address is straightforward and weekend parking in the area is manageable.

📍 DoggieLove — 71 Military Road, Neutral Bay NSW 2089

What to Expect from Our North Shore Program

Our approach doesn't change based on postcode. What you get at Neutral Bay is the same framework, the same philosophy, and the same quality of delivery as any other Toe Beans Co program.

What does change is context. We train for the world your puppy is actually going to live in — and on the North Shore, that means harbour-side walks, busy weekend café strips, beaches, parks, and a social culture where your dog needs to be genuinely well-mannered in public.

The Framework: Relational Leadership

We don't teach commands and call it training. We teach your puppy , and you the foundations of a relationship built on calm, consistent leadership.

Our method is called Relational Leadership. It works by establishing you as the kind of presence your puppy genuinely wants to follow: not because they're afraid of consequences, not because a treat appears, but because you've earned their trust and respect through clear, predictable behaviour.

The five principles we never deviate from:

• No pain. No aversive corrections, no shock, no prong. Ever.
• No fear Training should never make a dog anxious.
• No force Physically pushing or restraining a dog into compliance is not training.
• No aggression From trainer to dog, or encouraged owner to dog.
• No bribery as a substitute for behaviour. Treats have their place. Relying on them as the primary behaviour management tool is where most owners eventually hit a wall.

This is not the only valid approach to dog training, and we don't pretend otherwise. But it is the approach that consistently produces well-mannered, confident dogs whose owners actually enjoy living with them — and that's the outcome we're focused on.

The 4-Week Program — Week by Week

Week 1 Foundations and First Impressions

We don't warm up for 30 minutes. You arrive, we do a clear and practical briefing covering what to expect, and we get straight into training. Puppy attention spans are short and precious we don't waste them.

Week 1 covers:

• Structured puppy introductions one by one, in a controlled sequence designed to set a calm tone from the very first minute
• Core commands: Sit, Down, Stay taught with clear technique, not just repetition
• Supervised puppy-to-puppy socialisation with narration, so you understand what you're actually watching
• Biting, teething, and toileting  the two things most owners most urgently need practical help with in the first few weeks. A framed photo of your puppy saved and presented as a graduation gift at Week 4

Week 2 Adding Difficulty

Puppies grow fast. By Week 2, they're bigger, more confident, and testing more edges. We build on the Week 1 foundations and introduce real-world complexity.

Week 2 covers:

•  Down and Stay with increasing distraction levels
• Stay versus Wait: two separate commands with genuinely different purposes — and why conflating them causes problems
• The first introduction to structured walking and loose-lead fundamental
• Addressing jumping up and attention barking two of the most predictable problems at this age
• Introduction to Rules 1 and 2 of the Five Golden Rules of Relational Leadership

A note for Week 2 owners: your puppy may not perform as reliably in class as they do at home. There are up to 10 other dogs in the room. That level of distraction is deliberate. Learning to respond reliably in a distracting environment is the actual skill — and it develops progressively.

Week 3 Building Reliability

Week 3 is when the work either sticks or shows its gaps. Puppies are noticeably more physically capable and mentally demanding at this stage. Owners who've been consistent see real progress. Those who haven't start to notice it.

Week 3 covers:

• Command chains — running multiple commands in sequence to build mental fatigue deliberately
• Recall under distraction: the most important command, and the hardest to proof
• Off-leash structured walking, using "Walk" and "Go Free" commands
• Separation anxiety prevention — Rules 3 and 4 of the Relational Leadership framework
• Exercise guidance by breed: by Week 3, most puppies need significantly more stimulation than owners expect

Week 4  Real-World Skills and Graduation

The final week applies everything to real-world scenarios and looks ahead to adolescence, the phase where many owners feel like they're losing ground.

Week 4 covers:

• Recall and loose-leash walking in high-distraction conditions
• Walking techniques: figure-of-8, stop-start, calm freeze, and long-line work
• Park play education: how to read body language, when to intervene, and how to know when your dog has had enough
• Common adolescent problems — leash pulling, selective recall, digging — and practical prevention strategies
• Graduation: framed Week 1 photo presented, final Q&A, and an invitation to continue in our Skool community

What Our North Shore Program Includes

• 1:1 In-Home Visit before the school starts:  we come to your home, assess your setup, and help establish the foundations of routine, boundaries, and behaviour from the very beginning. This is not an add-on. It's a core part of the program.
• 4 Weeks of Puppy School at DoggieLove, Neutral Bay: weekend sessions, small groups of 6–10 puppies
• Access to our Skool community: a private online platform where you can ask questions, share progress, and get support between sessions and after graduation. Think of it as a group chat with your trainer, always on.
• The Complete Puppy Preparation Program — a comprehensive digital resource covering everything from crate setup to breed-specific development timelines, feeding protocols, and adolescent preparation
  
• Personalised session homework — sent after each class to keep the work progressing at home
  

Who This Program Is For

We see a wide range of owners and puppies in our classes, and the North Shore is no different. Some clients are first-time dog owners with no baseline at all. Some have had dogs their whole lives and are realising their experience hasn't automatically translated into a well-behaved dog. Some are in apartments. Some have houses with gardens — and assume that space equals structure (it doesn't). Some have kids. Some have older dogs at home.

We work with all of them. What changes is the delivery. What stays constant is the framework.

On breed and size: we accept all breeds and all sizes. The North Shore tends to attract a good mix — Doodles and Cavoodles are well represented in the area, as are Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Labradors, and smaller companion breeds. Every puppy, regardless of size or breed background, goes through the same program with the same quality of attention.

On prior experience: you don't need to have done anything before the program starts. Equally, if you've already started training at home, we'll work with what you've built. The only thing we ask is that once you're enrolled, everyone in the household is consistent. A program that works for one family member and is ignored by another is not a program — it's a source of confusion for your dog.

Addressing the Misconceptions We Hear on the North Shore

Every area has its own version of common puppy training myths. Here are the ones we address most regularly:

"I'll start training properly once they've settled in."

• The window between 8 and 12 weeks is the most important developmental period in your puppy's life. Every week that passes without clear structure is a week of habits forming — and undoing habits is always harder than setting them correctly from the start. By the time most owners feel ready to start, the easy window has already narrowed.

"They're too young for rules."

• This is one of the most damaging ideas in modern puppy ownership. Puppies raised without structure in their first weeks don't get to start fresh at 12 weeks — they arrive with defaults already set. We've walked into homes where an 8-week-old puppy has already established that crying gets results, that the owner's bed is theirs, and that food is available on demand. Undoing those patterns takes significantly longer than building the right ones from the start.

"They just need socialisation — we'll do the training later."

• Socialisation without structure produces dogs that are comfortable around other dogs but have no impulse control, no reliable recall, and no idea where the boundaries are. Socialisation is a critical part of what we do — but it happens within a structured framework, not as a substitute for one.

Small breeds don't need as much training

• Small breeds need exactly as much training as large ones. The behaviours that are tolerated in a 5kg dog — jumping, barking, pulling, resource guarding — become genuine problems as the dog ages, regardless of size. We see plenty of small dogs on the North Shore whose owners laugh off behaviour that would horrify them in a larger dog. It catches up with them.

Treat-based training is working well for us.

• Treats are a useful tool in command training. They are not a behaviour management system. If your dog only responds when food is visible, you have a dog that has learned to expect payment before performing — not a dog that understands what's expected of them. Our approach uses treats strategically within a framework that doesn't depend on them.

Frequently Asked Questions

When do classes start?

• Our North Shore Puppy School at DoggieLove launches in June 2025. Register your interest now to be notified when bookings open — we expect spots to fill quickly given the limited availability of quality puppy school venues in this part of Sydney.

What age does my puppy need to be?

• We recommend starting as close to 8 weeks as possible. We require puppies to have received, or be imminently due to receive, their second vaccination before joining the group sessions.

How many puppies are in a class?

• Between 6 and 10. That's a deliberate ceiling. It ensures every dog gets proper attention and every owner gets real answers, without the chaos of an oversized group.

Do you take all breeds and sizes?

• Yes — all breeds, all sizes, all temperaments. The DoggieLove facility is well-suited to a range of sizes, and we have experience working with everything from toy breeds through to larger working and sporting dogs.

What if we have an older dog at home?

• Very relevant, and something we address directly in the program. An older dog is one of the most significant influences on how a puppy develops — either an asset or, if the older dog has their own behavioural issues, a complicating factor. We'll talk through your specific situation during the in-home visit.

Is the in-home visit really included?

• Yes. It's not an optional add-on. We come to your home before the group sessions begin and help you set up the physical environment — crate or pen, zones, routine — and establish the early foundations for behaviour. The owners who get the most from puppy school are the ones who arrive at Week 1 with the right foundations already in place.

Where exactly is DoggieLove?

• 71 Military Road, Neutral Bay NSW 2089. Easy to reach from across the Lower North Shore. Weekend parking information is sent to all enrolled clients before the first session.

*The Toe Beans Co also runs Puppy School in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs (Paddington, Zetland), Inner West and at Marrickville. No pain, no fear, no force, no aggression — in every location, every time.*

The Toe Beans Co is a Sydney-based ethical dog training business operating under a strict no pain, no fear, no force, no aggression policy. Our Puppy School Eastern Suburbs program runs at Dogs in Town, Paddington. We also run programs in the Inner West and North Shore — see those pages for details.