Group Training Classes
Dogs make life awesome, and we’re here to ensure that they become wonderful members of your household! Our staff of certified trainers makes each class fun and safe, and gives plenty of positive reinforcement for the dogs and the humans.
Our group classes are limited to just 4 to 5 teams, so you and your pup will get plenty of attention and feedback from your instructor.
You’ll have access to an online class folder with homework sheets for each week and lots of handouts to help answer your questions and take your training to the next level.
Do you have a new puppy and want to get started on the right foot? This class is for all puppies who are 8-16 weeks old on the first week of class. This is the perfect time to start teaching your puppy the basics so they can become well-mannered family members. We will start teaching the puppies some behaviors (sit, lie down, coming when called, leave it) and also give them a variety of socialization experiences. Owners also learn about housetraining, puppy nipping and teaching good bite inhibition, and the importance of socialization. The whole family is invited to attend, including children. All puppies under 16 weeks of age should start with this class, even if you've started training and socializing them at home.
Age: Pups must be between 8 and 16 weeks old on the first week of class.
Length: 5 weeks, 1 hour per week. First week is orientation for humans only.
Cost: $185
This class is the starting place for all dogs over 16 weeks of age, or as the follow-up to our Puppy Starter Kit class. This class focuses on teaching your dog many foundation skills while improving your relationship with your dog through effective communication. Your dog will start to learn important basic skills that will help him/her to be a well-behaved member of the family, including: attention around distractions, sit, down, stay, coming when called, polite leash walking, polite greetings (not jumping up), leave it, drop it, and nose targeting. Does your dog already know how to do some of these behaviors at home? That’s ok! You can practice them in a more distracting environment, and we can add extra challenge to each behavior as needed to keep improving your dog’s skills.
The whole family is encouraged to attend, including children over 6 years of age.
This class is a prerequisite for our higher-level manners classes, even if you've taught your dog basic behaviors at home.
Length: 5 weeks, 1 hour per week. First week is orientation for humans only.
Cost: $185
It is crucial for dogs to practice their social skills with other dogs, especially in the first 1-2 years of their life, but it's difficult to find opportunities for your dog to interact with others in a safe, structured way that helps them develop better social skills. Good Dog Social Skills is the answer!
Good Dog Social Skills classes are social skills practice sessions for dog-friendly and human-friendly dogs who have taken at least 1 Manners class (including Puppy Starter Kit) at Animal Alliances. It's an excellent class for young puppies and adolescents who are still developing their social skills. This is not an appropriate class for dogs who are reactive to other dogs, including dogs who are too excited around other dogs to eat treats or hear you call their names. For those dogs, try our Remedial Social Skills class!
In Good Dog Social Skills class, we help the dogs learn to be calm and focused around other dogs and people. We practice polite leash walking past other dogs. When the dogs are ready, we practice polite on-leash greetings and then disengaging and moving away from the other dog. For dogs who are ready and interested, we will practice off-leash social skills as well. Dogs who want to play can play (although we will help them learn to ask politely and to read other dogs' social cues in response), and dogs who want to just hang out and watch can do so. Just being around other dogs and observing will help your dog build social skills and confidence around other dogs. We will make sure the dogs take breaks from play to keep them from getting over-aroused. Humans are encouraged to ask questions about dog play and body language!
Prerequisite: At least one Manners class at Animal Alliances.
Length: 5 weeks, 1 hour per week.Cost: $185
Does your dog know his/her basic manners at home and in the classroom, but have trouble applying them to "real life"? Would you like to teach your dog to do better stays, walk nicely on leash past distractions, come when called even when there are temptations around, and leave alone food dropped on the floor? Intermediate Manners will help you and your dog move to the next level with your training.
Prerequisites: Basic Doggie Decorum class or an equivalent class at another training center. Dogs should be able to do basic loose-leash walking in a classroom, yard, or equivalent moderate-distraction environment, stay while their handler walks 5 steps away and back to them, come 5' when called in a classroom or equivalent environment.
Length: 5 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs attend all 5 weeks.
Cost: $185
This class takes distraction to the next level. The dogs will learn to work in close proximity to each other; come away from enticing distractions; walk past food, dogs, humans and other temptations; go lie down on their mats; wait politely at doorways; and untangle their own leashes from around their legs, poles, or their human.
Prerequisites: Intermediate Manners or the equivalent at another dog training school. Dog should be able to do good loose-leash walking past stationary distractions; stay while handler walks 5 steps away and drops a toy or treat on the ground; come past moderate distractions on the floor (e.g. a toy); ignore a treat placed or dropped on the floor.
Length: 5 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs attend all 5 weeks.
Cost: $185
Canine Good Citizen is the American Kennel Club's certification for dogs who pass a test of their good basic manners, including sit, down, stay, come, good leash walking, ability to stay calm around new humans, ability to accept petting and handling from a new human, and ability to be left with a new human for 3 minutes while their handler is out of sight. The entire test must be done without giving treats. For details on the test please visit the AKC website.
Prerequisites: Advanced Manners or equivalent, or permission from the head trainer.
Length: 5 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs come to all 5 classes. The CGC test will be administered the final week of class. (This can be used as a practice test for dogs who are not ready to pass the whole test.)
Cost: $185
This is an outdoor class held at Childs Park in Northampton. During the class, your dog will work on all the basic commands (sit, down, stay, and come) in the distracting environment of the outdoor world. We will also work on polite greetings of people and dogs, walking on a loose leash, coming when called, and leave it (coming away from things on the ground you don't want your dog to pick up).
Prerequisites: Intermediate Manners or Good Dog Social Skills.
Length: 4 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs come to all 4 sessions.
Cost: $148
Location: Child's Park, Northampton
Outdoor Etiquette 2
Has your dog mastered the skills in Outdoor Etiquette Level 1? This class will continue to improve your dog's skills at leash walking, leave it, and coming when called and add in some new behaviors that are useful when taking your dog out in the world. We will work closer to the other teams and add in bigger distractions.
Prerequisites: Outdoor Etiquette Level 1.
Length: 4 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs come to all 4 sessions.
Cost: $148
Location: Childs Park, Northampton
Does your dog bare her teeth, growl, bark, snap, or lunge when she sees other dogs or humans? Or does he hide behind you or cower? Is she so excited about other dogs that she leaps and pulls until she chokes herself? This class is for dogs who are "reactive", or have an inappropriate reaction to dogs, people, cars, bicycles, or other things in the world. We will work on skills for helping your dog look at their triggers calmly, check in with (look at) you automatically when they see their triggers, and walk past their triggers without reacting. We'll gradually work on getting closer to other dogs as each dog is ready. We'll also practice strategies for keeping your dog under threshold when you encounter another dog.
In class, each team will have a screened-off area of the classroom as their “home base” so that the dogs can feel safe in the classroom. Our first goal is for the dogs to feel comfortable being in our classroom. Most dogs are excited to come in by their second week!
Prerequisites: None.
Length: 5 weeks, 1 hour per week. First week is Orientation for humans only - no dogs, please!
Cost: $185
Have you taken Remedial Social Skills I and want a way to keep practicing your dog's new-found skills at looking at other dogs (or humans) calmly? The best way to do that is through practice setups, where the dog's triggers are at a controlled distance and intensity level to prevent them from going over threshold and to build their confidence and trust that they are safe. Since it's often hard to find opportunities to practice, we offer Remedial Social Skills II. In this class, we will do lots of setups, increasing the challenge for each team as the dog is ready. Student dogs will practice looking at triggers, automatically checking in with their humans when they see triggers, performing known behaviors (touch, sit, down, etc) near their triggers, walking while their trigger is in sight, and walking away from triggers.
Prerequisite: Remedial Social Skills 1 (or permission of the head trainer)
Length: 5 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs attend all 5 weeks.
Cost: $185
Have you and your dog mastered the Pattern Games we use in RSS1 and can now confidently play them while a stressor (dog, human, etc) is present in the classroom? It's time to take your skills into the wider world! We offer RSS3 classes at Child's Park in Northampton. We use outdoor screens to give each dog a "safe space" to relax in, and work on each dog's ability to be calm and focused in an outdoor setting and then to notice triggers calmly outdoors.
Prerequisite: Remedial Social Skills 2 (or permission of instructor)
Length: 5 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs attend all 5 weeks.
Cost: $185
Agility is a fun obstacle course sport that provides your dog with mental and physical exercise. It also improves dog-human relationships, because Agility is all about teamwork! If your dog is nervous about exploring new objects, we will help them build their confidence. If your dog exuberantly throws themselves at obstacles, we will help them learn to slow down and think and listen to you. This class will get your dog started with this fun sport.
There is no pre-requisite for the Beginner Agility class. Kids over 12 years are welcome to join and work their dog in class.
Length: 4 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs attend all 4 classes.
Cost: $148
This class is all about exploring the world and making it into your dog's playground! Dogs will learn lots of ways to interact with objects in their environment, such as going over, under, or around them, putting 2 or 4 feet on them, and more! This is an excellent class for active dogs who need to move their bodies, for dogs who are nervous about their environment and need to build confidence, and for puppies and adolescent dogs (it's excellent socialization and proprioception training for growing bodies!). This sport is addictive: you'll soon be finding Parkour opportunities everywhere you go!
Prerequisites: None!
Length: 4 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs attend all 4 classes.
Cost: $148
While sit, down, stay, and come are important behaviors for your dog to learn, it's fun to teach them some tricks too. The tricks your dog will learn in this class include - jump through a hoop, spin, roll over, play dead, ring a bell, bow and lots more. This class will take your training skills to the next level, give you and your dog a fun activity to do together, and get your dog excited about training with you!
Prerequisites: Basic Doggie Decorum or equivalent recommended.
Length: 4 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs attend all 4 weeks.
Cost: $148
Nosework is a class that encourages your dog to use their #1 sense - their sense of smell. Your dog will learn to seek and find hidden treats, learn to sniff out a particular odor (a combination of essential oils used in official Nosework trials), and learn to tell you when they've found the odor. This class is an amazing brain workout for dogs, a great game to play at home in wintertime or crummy weather, and an opportunity for us to watch our dogs use their "superpower": their amazing noses.
Prerequisites: None!
Length: 4 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs attend all 4 classes.
Cost: $148
Have you taken Manners classes with your dog and are now looking for a way to push your skills to the next level and build your human/dog teamwork? Rally Obedience is a fun dog sport in which dog and handler teams complete a series of "fancy moves" together while walking. These activities range from walking together while weaving through cones to having your dog stay while you walk around them to walking quickly and slowly and having your dog match your pace. This class will introduce you to all of the skills needed for Novice Rally-O and then let you and your dog try out some Rally courses to use those skills. Rally-O is a fun way to use all the behaviors you've been working on in Manners classes to increase your bond with your dog! This is also excellent preparation for the Canine Good Citizen test, for becoming a Therapy Dog, and for increasing your dog's attention and leash walking and obedience skills for real life.
Prerequisites: Teams should have strong skills in Intermediate Manners: very good basic leash walking skills (dogs should be able to keep leashes loose and pay attention to where their handlers are going when walking), and be able to hold stays while handlers walk away and return.
Length: 5 weeks, 1 hour per week. Dogs attend all 5 classes.
Cost: $185
“Can’t believe it’s been about 6 months since class. We just wanted to send you an update and thank you again for all you taught us. Otto’s reactivity is so infrequent now, maybe <10% of the time, he is actually fun to walk and bring places. He has some doggy friends he loves to play with and even goes to daycare. He does well on a long lead hiking, and always “checks in” when he gets to the end. He is really a different dog than the boy we brought in to class! We use the tools from class in all our training, and when and if he does have a reaction (bunnies running across the street really get him), he is so easily redirected by 1, 2, 3 or two step.
Thank you again so much, we credit a lot of our job as pet parents to things you taught us, and still talk about class all the time!”
-Ally, Alex and Otto