Starting from the moment your dog was born, they’ve been learning about the world! For about the first 3 weeks of their lives, their eyes and ears are closed and they really only learn how to use their bodies.

After that, they enter the socialization window. This is a period of time where puppies are able to discover new things and quickly accept that they are safe. This is a unique opportunity and it’s important that puppies learn that the world they’re in is fundamentally safe in this precious period of brain development.

Our Puppy Imprinting is focused on three things:

• socialization

• appropriate behaviour at home

• foundational skills

We want to make sure that things are going well in every aspect of your puppies life, now more than ever. It’s so important for them to have good experiences, and for you to bond with them while they are still so impressionable.

What’s included?

• several training sessions placed optimally throughout the day (~1.5hr/day)

• daily socialization to sights, sounds, people, environments, and dogs

• fully-supervised care with scheduled nap times and crate or confinement training

• housetraining to help your puppy develop appropriate chewing and potty habits

• carefully supervised play time with other well-socialized dogs and puppies

• twice daily updates on your puppy’s socialization and training

• personalized training program focused on preparing your puppy for the future you want for them and you

• two in-person transfer sessions after your puppy’s stay

• thorough written follow up

• unlimited virtual refreshers for the puppy’s life

• steeply discounted board and train touch ups for the rest of your puppy’s life

• high-quality, nutritious, age-appropriate treats and chews

• no more than 3 dogs boarding at any one time

Socialization

Socialization is the process through which we are taught the norms, values, and customs of our society, family, and species. The puppy imprinting program places an enormous amount of our time and effort on socialization because puppies present a really unique opportunity for the first few months of their lives: they are extremely easy to convince that the things they encounter are safe and enjoyable.

Behaviour at Home

When your puppy comes home with you, every single thing they do and see is brand new to them- after all, they’ve only existed for a few weeks! This is the perfect time to teach them exactly what we expect from them in a home environment. When puppies come for imprinting, we focus on housetraining, chew training, and settling at home while things happen around them.

Foundational Skills

Having a well-behaved dog has two requirements: a happy dog, and a dog who knows what to do. Our life skills programming focuses on the latter. While other parts of our program focus mainly on your dog’s emotional state, as we know that emotions drive behaviour, we also want to make sure that our puppies know how to be polite and sociable in every context. In our puppy imprinting program, we focus on the behaviours every dog needs to know: recall, sitting to say please, laying down and settling in new locations, and greeting people and dogs politely.