Doggone Pawsitive wants you to have a well behaved friendly family pet. Who doesn't want that? We want you to be able to enjoy your life with your dog to the fullest. If a dog is well behaved and has good manners they are usually treated as a much loved family member. They can walk with you in the park, run on the beach, go to your children's soccer games, be calm and well behaved when visitors come over, take part in doggy sports like agility or tracking and even go with you on vacation. Studies show dogs without training often end up being surrendered to animal shelters or banquished to the backyard as they are out of control and not enjoyable to be around.

With support and coaching from our professional instructors, you will learn how to train your dog so they will be an asset to your family and community – not a liability. We like to say Cujo or Lassie - it is your choice. We can help you raise Lassie.

Doggone Pawsitive believes that every puppy and dog has the potential for greatness providing we you provide for their needs and give them proper training guidance.

What do dogs need: good quality food and rest, proper health care, affection and attention from you, physical safety, aerobic exercise, relaxed exercise, mental stimulation, positive consistent training, the opportunity to chew, sniff and explore in a safe and appropriate way.

Training your dog is very much like raising a child - you need to be positive, firm, fair and consistent.

Remember positive training does not equal permissive so this is not training where we overindulge the dog giving them lots of treats just because they are cute. Your dog should work for their rewards (which can be toys, treats, games, play with you etc) and eventually we turn the dog into a bingo player - sometimes they win and sometimes they don't. Overall there need to be clearly communicated rules and consequences for behaviour - for undesirable behaviour we show you how to be a good doggy parent without hurting your dog.

You will have a much better behaved dog if you provide for their needs, manage their behaviour to set them up for success, understand their body language, give them clear,consistent positive training and help your dog understand they get what they want through doing what you want.

Doggone Pawsitive focuses on early intervention and problem prevention – along with a healthy dose of creative problem solving. That is why we are so passionate about promoting the value of puppy training - you can actually prevent many bad behaviours from forming simply by training and socializing a puppy properly at a young age,

Doggone Pawsitive specializes in positive reinforcement clicker training – which means we reward the dog for the right behaviour. Behaviour that is rewarded gets stronger. When you teach a dog what you want them to do instead of physically punishing them for bad behaviour you are building a bond of trust with your dog and you are teaching them positive alternatives instead of sit down shut up and behave. We do not support the use of choke collars, prong collars or shock collars as these methods can lead to fear, anxiety and aggression and create far worse behaviour issues in the dog than the original problems.

Our gentle, positive approach is simple, efficient and effective. Our training is based on scientific knowledge of how animals (and people) learn. Your dog retains more when trained with positive methods – just like people. Best of all – it is so simple that children as young as four years old can take part. It is so effective that all sorts of working dogs are trained this way – bomb sniffing dogs, police dogs, sheep herding dogs, dog actors like the dogs in the 101 Dalmations, assistance dogs for the visually and hearing impaired and canine athletes like agility dogs.

Doggone Pawsitive will also train you to talk dog and to understand dog communication - what the dog is telling us with their body language. Once we understand what the dog is telling us then we can work with that to train better behaviour.

We are committed to taking the stress of training your dog through a fun, positive, caring and professional approach that engages all family members - young and old.

Doggone Pawsitive trains not only your dog – but you also. The dog is only fifty per cent of the equation. Training is a two way street – it is a question of teaching the human at the end of the leash how to speak and understand “Doglish”. The skills you learn through our classes are transferable to any situation – and to any species – from dogs, children and spouses to birds, rabbits, horses and even fish!

Doggone Pawsitive is committed to delivering the highest level of service possible to our family of clients through regularly attending professional development activities and continuing education. We hope our passion for positive reinforcement training helps you and your pet become Pawsitively the best you can be!