Cascade Day School
Cascade Day School is a quarterly canine education program designed to help busy families integrate consistent training into daily life. Our professional trainers work hand-in-hand with you to create lasting change over the course of ten weeks. Unlike our Board and Train program, your dog will stay at home with you. You’ll bring your dog in once a week for a full day of hands-on training time with our trainers. At the end of each weekly class day, you’ll meet with your trainer to go over how the day went, your homework assignments for the week, and any questions you may have.
Our day school sessions are quarterly and each session is ten weeks long. We open a three-week enrollment period one month prior to the start of each quarter. Prospective students are qualified through a phone or email evaluation process. If accepted, tuition is due before the enrollment period closes to reserve your space in the session. The enrollment fee is $995.
TBD – Stay tuned for updates!
Completion of a quarter at Cascade Day School comes with acceptance into the Alumni Club. Alumni students enjoy access to fun perks they’ve earned through their hard work and commitment to training. Perks include:
- Invitation to Alumni Walks. Grab a coffee and the leash, let’s go for a walk! Hit a local trail or fun dog spot for a group walk with dog trainers and other alumni. Learn, share stories, ask questions, and enjoy the payoff of having a well-trained dog out and about.
- Get access to private lessons. We only offer private lessons for Alumni Club members, and these can be scheduled directly with your trainer to work on specific challenges you’re facing at home.
- Special offers. We’ll reach out when we have a great deal, discount, or an extra spot has opened up in an upcoming session!
- Training add-ons during boarding visits. When your dog stays with us in boarding, they can be signed up for one-on-one training time throughout their stay.
Day school is a way to provide structure and teach new skills to dogs without serious behavioral issues. This works especially well for families adjusting to life with a newly adopted dog or puppy. Aggression of any kind, resource guarding, potty training, and severe anxiety requiring medication are not able to be addressed in this program. You can take a look at what your pup will focus on each week by checking out our weekly cirriculum!
Frequently Asked Questions
Day school is a way to provide structure and teach new skills to dogs without serious behavioral issues. This works especially well for families adjusting to life with a newly adopted dog or puppy. Aggression of any kind, resource guarding, potty training, and severe anxiety requiring medication are not able to be addressed in this program.
Cascade Day School is a hybrid program where your dog receives professional training on-site at our facility and at home with you. For the program to be successful, you can expect to make the following investments of time throughout the ten week course:
- Drop off at 9:30am once per week for a class day. Pick up at 4:30pm, with a 30 minute meeting to go over how the day went, answer questions and learn how to do the homework assignments for the week.
- At least 10 minutes of homework per day – A one hour lesson on week 5 and week 10 (Midterm and Final)
- A general mindset shift around the house that every interaction with your dog is an opportunity to teach. Examples of this look like: your dog nudges your hand, and instead of just petting them and rewarding pushy behavior, you ask them to work for your attention and praise by first performing a task.
We open a three-week enrollment period one month prior to the start of each quarter. The enrollment schedule can be found under the “Dates” tab at the top of this page!
On your assigned weekly training day drop-off is at 9:30 AM, and pick-up is at 4:30 PM in our main office.
Cascade Day School Curriculum
This is Orientation Week and Picture Day! On the morning of day one, you and your dog will meet a trainer at our facility to go over your current training challenges and to set goals. Your trainer will customize course curriculum to serve your unique goals. The rest of the day will be spent acclimating your dog to this new environment, learning the basics of “good” and “no,” leash and name awareness. Each student will get their picture taken and a print will be ordered for you to take home at the end of the quarter
Introducing or polishing the basics that every dog needs to know to be good family member and citizen: Off, Wait, Okay and Right Here.
Down, Come Here, Body Blocking, Drop It and Place. We cover a lot in these two weeks. Through fun games and practical exercises, we work on those commands that are crucial for building impulse control, good public manners, and off-leash skills.
We work on Leave It, continue building on the Place command, and practice polite greetings with people. At the end of the day, it’s time to see how far you’ve come in an extended lesson! This is the halfway point of the course, where you will put your skills to the test and see how much progress you and your dog have made.
Let’s work on just being still. We’ll hone our Stay position, focusing on the 3 Ds of dog training – Distraction, Duration, and Distance.
Time to learn the basics of being out in public. We’ll take field trips during class to local spots like coffee shops, parks, and bookstores. All of those commands we’ve been working on for seven weeks will find their practical purposes as your dog is put to work in different settings.
We’ll work on setting you and your dog up for success by going over handling concepts and exercises for vet visits and grooming appointments. We’ll also continue to work on greetings and proofing the skills we know at this point to make sure they can be done anywhere and anytime.
We’ll continue polite greetings and proofing commands to find where our weak points are and focus on strengthening those areas. We’ll also work on recall using a longline which safely simulates being off-leash.
The week you’ve been working towards! By week 10, we’ll be working on using verbal-only commands with little to no guidance with the leash. In our final extended lesson, you will be able to demonstrate mastery of the curriculum and be awarded with a certificate of completion from the program, your keepsake photo from the first day of class, and acceptance into the Alumni Club.
Inquiry & Enrollment Submission Form
Now Enrolling for Spring Quarter!
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