Types of Training

Port Chester Obedience Training Club's Family Manners program is based on our belief that training a dog should be a fun, enjoyable experience for all parties, whether your goal is a well-mannered family pet or an obedience champion. For puppies and dogs of all ages, Family Manners classes help to build a happy, lasting bond, and a harmonious relationship between dog and owner. This unique program, carefully developed by our team of instructors, offers a range of classes for all dogs, utilizing positive reinforcement methods.

Emphasizing life skills and household manners, we also introduce students to a variety of fun and challenging dog sports and other activities. Adding more challenges as skills increase, PCOTC's Family Manners classes teach handlers how to teach their dogs to love learning and working.

Family Manners classes have a maximum student/teacher ratio of 8:1, allowing ample opportunity for coaching as well as question and answer breaks to address common household issues. In addition, we offer online support with a Yahoo discussion list that enables students to ask instructors for clarification and tips in between weekly class meetings. The Yahoo group's file section also contains a wealth of information on a wide variety of timely, useful topics that enhance all aspects of the program and includes suggested reading and a list of helpful websites.

Family Manners: Puppy is for dogs up to 20 weeks old. Classes focus on socialization with people and other puppies, and fundamental exercises including name recognition, walking on-leash, sit, down, and come. Supervised playtime builds the pups' confidence. We also cover crate training, and discuss housetraining, teething and chewing, safety in the car, choosing safe toys, diet, and grooming tips.

Dogs over 20 weeks join the Family Manners: Foundation class, which emphasizes core basic training, manners and safety. Exercises include sitting to greet, name recognition with distractions, sit, down, and stand with increasing duration, coming when called, and walking nicely on-leash. Leave it work, self-control, and wait, hand targeting and relaxation exercises are introduced. Nutrition, grooming, and household management are also covered.

For those who have mastered Family Manners: Foundation, Family Manners: Skills builds the bridge to developing more formal obedience skills by increasing duration and distance, and proofing with safe distractions appropriate to each dog's level of ability. Skills students also master left and right turns, about turns, down from stand, recalls to front with distractions, sit and down with walk-arounds, serpentines, and other cone work; they teach their dogs to go to their mats, and play some seriously fun games.

In Family Manners: Unleashed!, a high level intermediate class, students work toward off-leash reliability through further proofing of core skills, including recalls, stays, and leash walking/heeling. More distance work, retrieving, nose work and advanced targeting are introduced. Teams participate in more seriously fun games, including the "Ultimate Stay and Recall Challenges."

Family Manners: Connect! teaches both handler and dog how to work as a team when they really need to. For dogs of all ages, Connect! hones in on key attention components, such as "The Name Game" and the "Automatic Check-in." Teams learn to be mutually observant and gain skills to work together regardless of the distraction.