You’ll begin by enrolling in the monthly auto renew membership program (2 month minimum). Once you’ve purchased your membership, you can start attending unlimited classes. Our puppy program is based on age: puppies ages 8-16 weeks will start in Puppy Preschool, 16-24 weeks in Puppy Kindergarten, and ages 24 weeks to 8 months Puppy Primary. You and your puppy will be automatically moved up as he ages out of each level.
Yes! We ask that you register for each class you plan to attend as we only allow so many students per class. You can visit our calendar to view and register for individual classes. Registration is allowed up to 7 days prior to the class date. If you find that you cannot attend a class that you have reserved, we kindly ask that you please cancel your registration so that any students on the waiting list can attend.
You can attend unlimited classes that are offered at your puppy's level.
Your puppy can begin classes as soon as he comes home with you! We welcome all puppies 8 weeks and older. We encourage you to begin your puppy’s education as soon as possible in order for us to take best advantage of his important developmental stages. Once your puppy reaches 8 months old he will be eligible for our adult dog program.
We follow the wise advice of The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior who states that the primary and most important time for puppy socialization is the first three months of his life. Therefore, we ask that your puppy has had at least one round of shots prior to attending his first class. We do not require the rabies vaccine until he is 6 months old per Massachusetts law.
Your puppy will be eligible for his foundational class (Puppy Preschool for ages 8-16 weeks, Puppy Kindergarten for ages 16-24 weeks, and Puppy Primary for ages 24 weeks - 8 months.) Puppies under 24 weeks will also have access to all "Puppy" extracurricular classes, whereas puppies 24 weeks - 8 months will have access to all "Elementary" extracurricular classes.
At this time to adhere to COVID-19 standards, we are limiting to 2 students per dog. Thank you for understanding.
Depending on which studio and which class, we allow 6 to 8 puppies per class. This allows your teacher to give you plenty of one-on-one time!
To maximize your time at BlueDog Academy, all classes last 45 minutes.
Nope! However, if you are unsure of the best training program for your dog, please feel free to call us so that we can discuss your goals and help you determine what type of training is best for him.
We absolutely welcome people to observe a class prior to purchasing a membership! If doing so, we ask that you please leave your puppy at home as to not disturb the current students. You can watch the class to see if it’s the right fit for you and your puppy, and at the end our teachers will gladly answer any questions you may have.
Yes! Our program in rolling enrollment, so you can begin attending classes any day of the week and month, and begin immediately after purchase of your membership. If you purchase your membership but would like to begin classes on a future date, just let us know and we can adjust your start date.
Our program is designed to accommodate our students’ busy lifestyles. If you are to miss some time, we simply recommend that you make it up by attending more classes the week prior or after. That’s the great part about being able to attend unlimited classes! You are always welcome to attend extra classes to make up for time away.
The idea of our program is to offer a continued education for your puppy for as long as you’d like. Just like children, we can’t expect our puppies to learn everything after 8 weeks, especially when they still have a number of developmental stages to go through. So we allow and encourage you to continue taking classes for as long as you see fit for your puppy! However, if you would like to cancel your membership anytime after the first 2 months you can do that by contacting us.
If you want to attend a class that is full, you can register for the waiting list. If a student drops out and you are moved into the class, you will receive a text message notifying you that you can attend. Please note that we monitor classes very closely. If classes begin reaching full capacity on a consistent basis, we will either put a hold on all new memberships or add more classes to make sure that our current students can continue to attend as many classes as they’d like.
Please review our what to know before your first class page.
In order to learn, your puppy will get to eat lots of treats during class! So you’ll want to bring a variety of soft, yummy, easy to swallow treats. We also recommend that your puppy comes to school hungry, so please hold off on feeding him his meal before class (and feel free to bring it with you to feed during class, as well as some additional yummier treats!) We suggest at least 3 different kinds of treats, all in separate baggies.
Please bring the leash, collar and/or harness that you regularly use for your puppy. Your puppy’s teacher will help you out if there’s something better you can be using for him! We do ask that you please do not bring your puppy on a retractable leash to school. We do not allow prong, choke, or e-collars to class; if this is equipment that you generally use, please reach out to us and we can advise you on an alternative to help your dog be successful at class!
Yes, and no! Your puppy needs repetition and positive experiences to learn. Therefore, many of the behaviors you work on will be worked on in each class. Keep in mind that as your puppy progresses and learns these behaviors, his teacher will begin to challenge him by asking him to perform them with distractions and with less reward. As well, there will be many times when your teacher will introduce a new behavior to your puppy. In order to help your puppy excel with his learning, we recommend that you practice all of the behaviors you learn at home, on walks, at the pet store, at the vets, and everywhere else you can. The key to his education is lots of practice, consistency and positive experiences!
We love when our students bring multiple dogs to classes! This is how it works: Each dog receives his own membership. This ensures that a proper education is experienced by both individual dogs. There are different ways that we can set this up, and if you plan to register two dogs, we recommend you contact us. Once the two memberships are purchased, you can begin attending class with both dogs. We do ask that at least one adult attends class per dog.
Have a question not answered in our FAQ? Contact us!