There's a question owners of older dogs ask us almost apologetically: is it too late? A 10-year-old dog with no training history. A senior rescued or inherited from a family member. A dog that's pulled on leash for a decade. Every one of those owners assumes the answer is yes.
No. And honestly, adult dogs have advantages.
An adult dog has a longer attention span than any puppy, no teething chaos, and settled motivations. What's actually harder about older dogs isn't learning — it's un-rehearsing habits that have paid off for years. That's not an age problem; it's a consistency problem, and consistency is exactly what a structured program provides.
What we adjust (and what we don't)
We adjust for the body: joints, hearing, and Reno's seasons matter for a senior dog's training schedule — icy sidewalks in January, real heat in July. We don't adjust the standard. Any age, any breed, any behavioral challenge — that's not a slogan, it's just what the last thousand dogs looked like.
The "new old dog" situation
If you just adopted a senior or inherited a family member's dog, you're not starting from zero — you're starting from unknown. Our free evaluation is built for exactly this: we meet your dog, see what's actually there, and tell you honestly what four weeks can do. Because your dog comes home every night and we coach you in your own home, an older dog never has to cope with being shipped off somewhere strange — which matters more at 10 than it does at 1.
And when your senior graduates? Group classes are free for the rest of their life. However long we get, the dog you live with can be the dog you hoped for.