Some of you may have visited our site in the past and noticed that the “Pet Manners Program” has been replaced by a series of six week classes. Beginning in 2010, we will be phasing out the Pet Manners Program (a six-month-long levels based system) in favor of a six week Basic Obedience class and a six week Advanced Obedience class.

We’ve decided to do this for a few reasons..
- Who can commit to a six-month-long class? It’s become clear that most of our lives can’t accomodate a long-term training program. Although the six month format was great for polishing basics and really fine tuning the dogs’ behavior, people just couldn’t get to class week after week.

- Basic classes have a fixed start date. The old Pet Manners Program allowed people to start at any time, which was great for getting dogs started straight away, but made it hard to fit in more than a few new skills in any one level, since we had to cover the same thing every class. Having a fixed start date will let us build on skills over time and introduce more new ones in less time.

- You can sign up for both the Basic and Advanced class at the same time (for a total of 12 weeks of training) for a discount, but take the Advanced class within three months of finishing Basic. This means you only need two six-week chunks of time to get your classes in, rather than one twelve-week chunk. You can take Basic (or Puppy) take a break, then come back to work on problem areas in Advanced.

If you’re currently enrolled in the Pet Manners Program, don’t worry! You will still get your six months of training and finish out your Levels; we’re just not accepting anymore students into the program.

If you have any questions about any of the new classes, please call (512-686-3050) or e-mail us (trainer@kinetic-canine.com).

- Elizabeth Bryant, CPDT-KA