Is Puppy Board and Train Right for Your Puppy?
Puppy board and train is a fit if your puppy:
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Is between 4 and 6 months old and fully vaccinated
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Needs real socialization, not just a trip to the pet store
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Is starting to show something you'd rather not see grow, like nipping, jumping, or ignoring you outside
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Has more energy and opinions than you expected
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Deserves a professional start before adolescence hits
If any of that sounds like your puppy, you're right on time. This is the window where good habits are easy to build and bad ones haven't set in yet. That's exactly what these two weeks are for.
What Puppy
Board and Train
Actually Looks Like
Your puppy lives and trains with me full time for two weeks. Every day is built around short, upbeat sessions, because a 4 to 6 month old puppy learns fast but can't focus for long. We work in bursts, then we rest, play, and go see the world. Field trips around Roseville and the greater Sacramento area are part of the curriculum. Parks, sidewalks, stores, new sounds, new people, calm dogs.
Here's the part I want to be honest about. This is not a finishing program. No two weeks turns a puppy into a fully trained adult dog, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. What we do here is the groundwork: basic manners, clear boundaries, and a puppy who thinks learning is the best game there is. That foundation is what makes everything later go faster and easier.
At 4 to 6 months, your puppy's brain is doing a lot. The early socialization window has mostly closed, so we're building on whatever experiences your puppy already has and filling in the gaps with careful, positive exposure. Adult teeth are coming in, impulse control is just beginning to develop, and attention spans are short. Puppies at this age retain what's repeated often and kept fun. They don't retain what's drilled or forced. That's why the work looks like play from the outside, and why it holds.
Your Dog Comes Home — and So Does the Foundation
Two weeks is a start, not an ending. Your puppy comes home with the basics in place and a clear sense of how to learn. Then it's your turn, and I make sure you know how to run it.
The program includes an evaluation, a go-home lesson where I walk you through everything your puppy learned, a written training plan built for your puppy, and three months of text and phone access to me after your puppy goes home.
From there, you've got options. Some families take a break and enjoy their puppy. Some pick up private lessons to keep building. And a lot come back when adolescence shows up around 6 to 12 months and their sweet puppy suddenly has opinions. That's normal, and the foundation we built makes that stage a lot easier to work through.
2 Weeks — $2,300
For puppies 4 to 6 months old, fully vaccinated. Two weeks building foundational obedience, confident socialization, and manners at home, plus an evaluation, a go-home lesson, a written training plan, and three months of trainer access.
Who Your Dog Will Be Living With
Your puppy isn't going to a kennel. Your puppy is coming to my house, living with me, my dogs, my cat, the doorbell, the coming and going, all of it. For a puppy, that's the whole point. A puppy who learns to settle in a busy house full of real life can settle anywhere.
So we do life together. Meals, rest, the busy parts of the day, field trips out into Roseville and Sacramento with other trainers and steady adult dogs who show your puppy how to be a dog. My house is a busy one. If yours is quieter, that's easy. I'd rather your puppy learn to hold it together here and then go home to something calmer than the other way around.
I've been in dogs since I was 12. I grew up showing dogs, then competed as an adult in protection sport, competition obedience, and agility. I spent years as a vet tech, learned from trainers I still look up to, and I've been training full time since 2019. Ask me about any of it at the consultation. But none of that is what makes this work. What makes it work is that we build the plan together. I meet your puppy, I meet you, and we're honest about what your puppy actually needs. Then your puppy lives with me for two weeks and learns how to learn, so I can hand that back to you.
Your puppy's new best friend - Alexia Rodriguez