Episode 73: The Puppy Training Program

Nicole is joined by Sarah Hartwig, the person behind the Puppy Training Program! The Puppy Training Program is a free benefit for buyers (and breeders) who use Good Dog's payment system.

Raising a puppy is the equivalent of homeschooling a child, except in this case, you are the teacher and your puppy is your student — one who doesn’t speak your language. Luckily, Good Dog's Puppy Training Program was created to help you translate — from 8 weeks, to 15 months.

Sarah walks through some of the main features of the Puppy Training Program, including the courses that are included, as well as the community support that comes with it. The Training Program goes over important skills for both the humans and pups, from socialization to house training to health & wellness.

The Puppy Training Program also includes useful training guides, including checklists, worksheets, and a sample planner.

If you're a breeder and have a Good Dog account, you can access the Puppy Training Program for free here!

Transcript

Nicole Engelman [0:24] Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Good Dog Pod! Thank you so much for tuning in this week. I’m Nicole, your Breeder Community Lead here at Good Dog, and I’m so excited to be joined today by Sarah Hartwig, who spearheads Good Dog’s new puppy training program. I’ll get to that in just a few moments, but for any listeners out there who are new here, I just wanted to say: Welcome! We are so happy to have you here. Good Dog is on a mission to build a better world for our dogs and the people who love them by advocating for dog breeders, educating the public, and promoting canine health and responsible dog ownership. We are a secure and free online community, created just for dog breeders, and we’re committed to empowering dog breeders with technology. If you aren’t yet a member of our community, we invite you to learn more about our mission and apply to join at gooddog.com/join. We would absolutely love to have you! As part of our commitment to empowering dog breeders with technology, we made a pretty big announcement last week that I’m super excited to share with you if you haven’t heard already. We just launched a brand-new zero-fee payment option on Good Dog. What does that mean, exactly? Using secure payments through Good Dog is always free for breeders, but now your buyers can pay with our new no-fee option. That means your buyers don’t need to pay any required protection fee to Good Dog, and they can choose to pay via a bank transfer for absolutely no processing fees. That is a brand-new feature! We are so excited about it. When paying through Good Dog, your buyers have the option to pay a small fee to receive additional protection and support. This guarantees them payment protection, lifetime support for them and their pup, and when your buyers make a full dog payment through Good Dog with protection and support, they receive (which is what we’re so excited to talk about today) free access to our new online puppy training program, something that typically costs $235. And they are getting that completely for free! With payments through Good Dog, breeders are always protected, and payments are always free for you. Good Dog protects you from cancellations, chargebacks, fraud, and more, which we know can cost breeders thousands of dollars a year. We want to protect breeders from that in any way possible. We’re so excited to offer your buyers this new zero-fee option because we never want fees to be the reason you, as a breeder, aren’t protected by Good Dog. We have your back on every single payment through Good Dog—whether your buyers pay for protection and support or not. We want to provide you with peace of mind so you can really just focus on what matters most: being with your dogs. Plus, when you accept payments through our software, we take care of things like generating professional invoices for you and helping you manage your deposits and payments all in one place. It just really couldn’t be easier. You might be wondering why we made this change, and the reason is honestly very simple. It was because of you, our community of Good Breeders. Your feedback is everything to us, and we’re always listening to what you need to make sure our platform is supporting you in the best way possible. We heard what you needed. We heard that fees were standing in the way of your puppy buyers paying you through Good Dog, so we built it! We’re thrilled that these changes will make our payment system more flexible for you and your puppy buyers. Sarah and I are both so excited to chat more about our new puppy training program, which your buyers receive free access to if they choose to pay our small protection and support fee when they make their full dog payment through Good Dog. Plus, all of the breeders in our Good Dog community also receive free access to our puppy training program. It’s one of our new Breeder Benefits. We know you might want to check out the program before recommending it to your buyers, and we really encourage you to do so. If you have any trouble accessing the program, feel free to reach out to your Good Dog Specialist Team at breederteam@gooddog.com at any time with questions. So, without further ado, let’s get into it! 

Sarah, before we start talking about the training program, I’d love to know more about you and your background with puppies and how you got started with training them.

Sarah Hartwig [4:40] Thanks, Nicole! Yeah, happy to be here and excited to talk about the puppy program. My background—my life has literally gone to the dogs for most of my adult life. My former career—I was an occupational therapist. At the same time, while I was finishing up that degree, I got my first dog as an adult and picked a stubborn breed. I had some training challenges of my own, and real honestly, there were times where I left a couple of classes crying because I felt like we weren’t making progress and that I had just kind of been arguing with my fur buddy for the last hour. I started researching breeding, going to seminars, just thinking and hoping that there was a better way and that there were other methods. That’s kind of where it all started. I started training and competing with my own dog and finished my degree. I was practicing as an occupational therapist for several years, and then had the opportunity to join my dog passion with my degree as an occupational therapist and was the Executive Director for a nonprofit that trained service dogs. Last 20 years, I’ve trained at various kennel clubs across the country, humane societies, and I’ve had my own training business. I am a breeder and still compete and train with my own dogs. Kind of a jack of all trades, master of none. We do conformation, agility, rally, obedience, workhorse, tracking, and all along the way, we’ve also been fostering rescue dogs and quite a few of them come with baggage (unfortunately) and some bad behavioral habits. I’ve learned and continue to learn a lot about some specific kinds of behavioral challenges. The big thing, for me, is just seeing that lightbulb for people with their own puppies of that relationship and feeling like aha! We’re actually communicating. We actually understand each other.

NE [6:59] That’s amazing. It sounds like you are definitely the expert to learn from. I’m just curious: What was that stubborn breed that you mentioned that got you into all this?

SH [7:07] That breed… My Dempsey was a Rhodesian Ridgeback. That is the breed that we still have, although from training with my own training businesses or other business, it’s been all breeds and sizes. 

NE [7:24] Are there certain breeds that you would say are easier to train than others or does it really just depend on the dog? 

SH [7:35] There can be breed tendencies, but of course, generalizing can get us into trouble, whether it’s dogs or people. There’s always individual personalities but generally speaking, the dogs in the sporting group—you think about how and why they were bred, the selective traits. They were bred to hunt with people, to take commands from people, versus my breed, a lot of the hounds were bred to hunt impacts independently of people. That’s kind of it in a nutshell, but of course you can get the wide variety within there. I’ve told a lot of our puppy training program students, too, that even if there’s a tendency in your breed… For example, some of those toy breeds or those terrier breeds—they like to talk. They can be pretty vocal. Even those where there might be a tendency, it doesn’t mean that you have to accept it and tolerate it. 

NE [8:36] I’m curious, from your perspective: What is Good Dog’s Puppy Training Program in a nutshell?

SH [8:40] In a nutshell, it’s pretty unique. Anybody can buy a book. Anybody can find YouTube videos or even other online puppy courses with great modules, some videos. The very unique thing about our program is that we cover topics that are anywhere from 8 weeks to 15 months of age. For all of us that have had dogs before, we know that, yes, puppyhood is challenging but adolescence can have whole new issues and challenges! So I think it’s very important that we cover that age group as well. Of course, the big thing is that we have support. All of our students have unlimited email support with me. We have weekly coaching calls, where it’s strictly Q&A. There’s no agenda. It’s just whatever people have questions about. That really sets us apart because books, YouTube videos—a lot of times that’s how, ideally, it should go. But, hey, real life happens and dogs don’t read those textbooks. Having that one-to-one, saying, “Okay, tried that. It’s not working. Now what?” 

NE [10:00] I love that. Dogs don’t read those textbooks. I think that it really is, I guess, a dance between the owner and the dog. It’s not just like you’re training the dog. I feel like in a lot of ways, you are working with a dog who is training you. Do you feel that way, too?

SH [10:15] Absolutely. Completely! Because we are building a relationship with our dogs so that they’re actually wanting to perform, sometimes really silly things in their minds. We definitely want to be having that relationship. I tell people a lot, too, that any dog that enters your life, quite frequently, they have something to teach us. It might not always be something that we particularly wanted to learn about, unfortunately, but it makes us better dog owners. It makes us better trainers. Absolutely. It’s a two-way street!

NE [10:55] Can you talk more about different topics that the puppy training program covers? Do you have a favorite out of the bunch that you cover? 

SH [11:03] Oh boy! As far as my personal favorite, and I apologize—my dogs are having a mosh pit wrestling. They hear other voices coming from my laptop, and all of a sudden it’s play time!

NE [11:19] It sounds like they have a few things to say themselves! 

SH [11:22] Yeah, showing off. They know they have an audience, so they’re showing off in the background. As far as favorites from the program, I would have to pick two. I think the Savvy Socialization module is so important. The way it’s written is so insightful. Unfortunately, socialization has really kind of gotten misunderstood and misused in the last 5-10 years. People have begun to think about it as a checklist. It’s not a checklist. It’s a continuing process that doesn’t just end at 16 weeks. It continues through a dog’s life. Savvy Socialization is so, so well-written and very insightful, even for people who do have dog experience. There are some little aha!’s when you read through it. My other favorite would be Adventure Walks. That is a very novel activity to do with puppies, and it works. It really, really works. It’s a great way to get out there with your dogs and enjoy outside. It’s pretty intriguing. I’ll just leave it at that, because it is a novel activity. 

NE [12:41] I would agree. I think just from personal experience, Adventure Walks are the coolest part of the Puppy Training Program, just having your dog out there and seeing them learning things and experiencing them for the first time, getting them a little bit braver and bolder—it’s really cool to watch. I would agree; that’s my favorite one to see. 

SH [12:59] Good! 

NE [13:02] You touched on this a little bit before, about how every dog that comes into your life is different and requires different training. Just a few questions for you about that: why is this program helpful for new dog owners, people that have never had a dog in their lives before? 

SH [13:17] The biggest thing is that we very much do encourage and appreciate the value of a good puppy kindergarten class or puppy socialization class. Those group classes that you can find locally—those are invaluable. However, because they’re set up for a group format, there are a lot of things that I know from personal experience as well, that you just can’t cover in a group class. A lot of those are going to be those typical puppy issues: mouthing, crate training, potty training. Our modules (written, video, all of those resources) go into a lot of detail. Those at-home behaviors are those things that we all know that we literally lose sleep over and that are very challenging. That we can help and start with good foundations instead of breaking bad habits down the road—that is the definite perk and probably the most important thing. 

NE [14:27] What if, on the flip side, you are welcoming a new puppy to your home but you aren’t a first-time dog owner? Someone who is a bit older and they’ve had, let’s say, two or three dogs in their life previously. Do you think that there is something that even more experienced dog owners can learn from the Puppy Training Program?

SH [14:45] Absolutely. Like I said, every dog that comes into our lives teaches us something new. Even that Savvy Socialization Module, even with my experience, there were things I was reading where I kind of realized: I’ve somehow gotten a misconception about that aspect over the last couple of years, etc.! I’ve had a lot of people that will comment, too, during coaching calls that they’ll attend; they don’t even really have a particular question or problem at the moment, but just listening to other people’s questions—they’re learning a lot and they could help, potentially, down the road if that issue crops up. Just like with our dogs, the Puppy Training Program is very much a two-way street. It is a community. There are times in coaching calls where people will have tips and suggestions, whether it’s a product or etc. We’re all constantly learning! There is no master-tier, done-learning with dog training. Even for experienced people, it’s still going to be a benefit.

NE [15:52] Definitely. Just picking up off of what you just mentioned about community, I know there’s that saying (especially with children) that it takes a village. I’m assuming that with puppies, it’s no different. Just talking a little bit more about why community is so important, especially the Good Dog Community when you’re raising your puppy. Maybe we can share a little bit more about the Puppy Training Program Facebook community and what that’s like for new puppy owners. 

SH [16:19] Sure! We actually have, in the description for that page, the word “community” because it is our community for raising puppies. A lot of times, the responses I’ll get are just people saying, “Thank goodness! I thought I was alone! I thought it was just my puppy!” or “I thought I was doing something wrong or this was abnormal or I’m failing at this.” Even just that support and sense of belonging and not feeling alone in puppy raising—that is valuable! And it’s encouraging for people. The Facebook page is pretty much anything puppy-related, so people will post questions there. They will even just post little brags of videos or cute pictures. It’s very much a two-way street of people sharing and answering and then also just “It’s Friday! Here’s a stupid video of my dog doing something completely adorable!” 

NE [17:21] Which is never a bad thing to see! No one ever said there were too many puppy videos to look at. I love what you mentioned about people just feeling less alone and that they have people that have their backs, which is a lot of the reason why we’re so happy we can offer this puppy training program to new puppy owners, because we do want them to feel that sense of community and that there are other people out there going through the same things. They’re not alone. That’s so exciting that we’re able to give that to them. What are some of the most interesting or memorable questions or stories that have come up during some of those puppy training/coaching calls that you can think of?

SH [17:59] Oh, wow. I think one that’s kind of most humorous is just people’s reaction of trying to pose a question about mounting behavior, aka humping. People will get very sheepish and really pretty cute and embarrassed to ask about any of that kind of behavior. I don’t know if they’re embarrassed and thinking it’s reflecting on them? But that’s always kind of humorous when that will come up as a topic. Again, that’s not abnormal dog behavior. And it’s not sexually-related, the majority of the time. No need to be embarrassed! Dogs keep us humble. 

NE [18:45] I love that. They definitely keep us humble! I think, just with a question like that—I’ve seen that come up many times, even in my own life with my own dog, and I feel like people worry: “Is this just my dog? Am I doing something wrong? Is it only me?” So I think it just goes back to that whole sense of community because I’m sure on posts like that, hundreds of people comment, “My dog does the same thing! Don’t worry!” It’s just nice to have some of those worries alleviated.

SH [19:13] It is. It absolutely is, to not feel alone.

NE [19:18] Just curious: what are some of the Must Do’s for someone preparing for a new puppy? Things people should avoid. Especially when you’re working with the breeder, it’s really nice that you have a heads-up and a lead time of when you can expect your puppy to come home. You get really great updates from the breeder, and they’ll usually send you a ton of information. So I feel like in those few weeks before you bring your puppy home, there’s a lot that’s being thrown your way and you want to make sure you’re prepared. So, what would you say some of the Must Do’s are for someone who is ready to bring their new puppy home?

SH [19:52] A couple of things that I think are very important, and we actually do have this in the modules for the puppy program. Number one would be just equipment and supplies. You can plan ahead and know what to buy. Even having suggestions or recommendations on specifics, whether it’s your breed or your size of puppy—that somebody has made mistakes before you and hopefully prevents you from making the same ill-advised purchases. Having your shopping list done well before your puppy comes home—so all those little things: a crate, probably multiple crates, an X-pen, your enzymatic urine cleaner, and all those obvious things of leashes and collars and bowls and planning ahead for a vet appointment. Post-Covid, vets are back up just like everything else. Planning ahead. Interviewing vets. All those things to do before! I kind of count that all as equipment and supplies. The other really important thing (and again this is in one of the modules that’s entitled “Before Puppy Comes Home”) is that you have a family meeting. I know that sounds corny, but we have a list of questions that you should sit down with, with everybody in your family, and discuss. What are our expectations? That you all agree and that you all have the same, consistent house rules right from the get-go. Is puppy going to be on the furniture? Is puppy going to be allowed on the furniture when they’re an adult? When they weigh 50 pounds? You can’t change that decision mid-stream. Are you going to allow your puppy on human beds? Are you going to allow your puppy in the kitchen? Are there going to be certain parts of the house that you don’t want them to be in? You need everybody in the house to come to a consensus so that you can all be consistent. Otherwise, it’s going to be completely unfair to puppy. They will fail, and they will be frustrated, and so will the owners. I would say that those are probably the two most important things. Getting your modules or getting all the recommendations and reading materials from your breeder before puppy comes home so that you can be reading before puppy comes home while you still have time! Because when puppy comes home, you’re not going to be sitting back and doing a lot of leisure reading. 

NE [22:27] That’s awesome. I love what you mentioned about families and just making sure everyone is on the same page. When it comes to the puppies actually coming home and training beginning with them, especially with families, do you recommend that there’s someone in the family who takes the lead on the training or does everyone kind of have their own role? Especially when you have younger children involved in the mix. How does all of that work?

SH [22:51] We always suggest (and what I found works the best) is that, of course with children, you kind of need parents to take the lead. They’re going to be role modeling how the children should also then be training. Should children be involved in training sessions? Absolutely. There are a couple of things that seem to be most impactful for children, and that is to be involved with feeding the dog, feeding puppy, meal times, and also a great one is to be playing hide-and-go-seek. So you’re basically practicing recalls or that “come” command with your puppy, but the kids go and hide. And the puppy goes and finds them. It’s actually a training session, but from the perspective of the children, they’re having a great time playing a game with their puppy. And the puppy is just thinking it’s a great game, and they’re burning off energy, too. Those are two big things that I always say that kids should be involved with. But, yeah, parents do need to be doing the initial foundation work, especially with some of the harder skills like leash manners or potty training. You can’t be expecting a child to be supervising and vigilant. “Oh, puppy needs to go out! I see them circling! I see them sniffing!” Children shouldn’t be expected. But they can definitely be involved. They gain such a sense of autonomy, too, of “Look what I got the puppy to do! They sat for me!” That’s always fun to watch.

NE [24:25] That’s awesome. I love that even the smallest member of the family can have such an impact in such a different way. That’s really awesome. You just mentioned that leash training and potty training are some of the hardest parts of training for a puppy owner to conquer. I’m curious if there are any others that come to mind, and then also which are some of, would you say, the easiest for a puppy owner to start conquering? 

SH [24:49] The easiest things are going to be those skill-based training, so something that the dog is performing, like sit or down or spin, shake. Some of those performance skills are going to be the easiest to teach. More nuanced and multi-layered tasks to teach a dog reliably are going to be potty-training, crate-training, leash manners. Those are probably the biggest three that are going to be the most challenging, the reason being that it’s kind of situational. Whether it’s nighttime, whether it’s daytime, whether you’re doing leash manners in your backyard or you’re trying to do leash manners down the treat aisle at Petco. That is a completely different level of challenge! There’s not really an easy answer for some of those things. We talk a lot in the modules and in coaching calls that there isn’t just one recipe for every dog. It’s kind of like you have a whole cookbook, so you need to be creative. There’s not just one recipe that works for every dog. Being creative and having the ability to problem-solve together of “What’s going on with this puppy? That didn’t work. Let’s try this instead.” I think that’s also a very valuable part of the Puppy Training Program.

NE [26:13] I love the idea of a cookbook, because there’s no real one-size-fits-all for every puppy. Just when a new owner has either a specific question or an urgent question, what are the resources within the Puppy Training Program that they can look to for answers to those questions?

SH [26:29] They can always go back to the written modules that are online, just for easy access and quick reference. Maybe there was a detail that they missed and they just want to refresh their memory on it. That would be the first, easiest step. Also, the Facebook page. That Facebook page has been in existence for a good year and a half already, so there’s already a lot of content on there. In Facebook, you can go within a page and do a search. A lot of times, if you need an answer in a quick turnaround time frame, a lot of times you can find the answer there as well just by somebody asking that question previously. And then, of course, the other option (if you’re still not finding how to apply some of the training methods or that they’re not working in that situation), people can always email me, and I will always respond with individual responses there as well.

NE [27:29] That’s awesome. I feel like the nice thing, especially with Good Dog and everyone that’s part of our team and also the Facebook group, is honestly everyone is so eager to help. I see it all the time. Someone will ask a question, and it feels like within minutes, there are ten different answers to read from and just hear other people’s experiences. It’s really great. It seems like everyone is always ready to jump in and help. You’re never alone when you are looking for an answer to your question.

SH [27:56] Absolutely. 

NE [27:58] In terms of training, I’m always curious about this: Obviously, there is work being done every day with your puppy, but how often should you be allotting time to training your puppy? Is it the whole day or would you say you devote a few minutes a day for very specific training? What do you find works best? 

SH [28:17] Our puppies are learning every moment of the day, indirectly through just living life with us. We do need to go back to those house rules and be consistent with those and not allow exceptions. Indirectly, they’re learning all the time. But as far as having structured training sessions, I actually kind of have found that with all breeds, less is more. What I mean by that is when I had my training business (this was back before we had all these streaming apps on TV and we still had to watch commercials), I used to tell my students that, hey, commercial breaks! That's a perfect opportunity. You can have a quick 2-minute training session. Grab a handful of treats, have a 2-minute training session with your puppy. If you’re doing 2-5 minute training sessions, 3-4 times a day, it’s much more beneficial than doing one 30-minute session per day. When you’re doing these little sessions 1) it’s easier for us to fit into our schedules and 2) it leaves the puppy wanting more. “Hey, wait, we’re done? You’re taking the treats away? Hey! I’ll do some more!” You leave them wanting more, and then they’re eager to work. They’re eager to learn. And they’re actually learning how to learn. Less can be more with those training sessions.

NE [29:41] Awesome. I love the idea of less is more. 

SH [29:44] It’s much more palatable, isn’t it? It’s not as overwhelming.

NE [29:47] Exactly. It doesn’t make it feel overwhelming. I think it makes it feel so manageable and, yes, they are learning every second of the day, which you mentioned, which is great, but I think the time that you’re devoting to it makes it feel very intentional, which I love. The Puppy Training Program is really good about helping you bring intentionality to those moments, so you really are making the most of it for you and your dog is getting the most out of it, which is always what we’re striving for. 

SH [30:12] Absolutely! And a lot of the program, of course, will be applying to puppies that are going to be performance potential dogs and are going to be competing and, in the future, might be doing a lot of structured training. All of the methods are going to apply to those dogs. But what we’re really focusing in on is having this be applicable to everyone. During the entire day, anybody can fit in a total of, like, 10 minutes for training. We’re being realistic about how life is.

NE [30:46] Definitely. It also sounds very fun! It’s just such a rewarding thing to try these different training tools with your dog and watch that moment where it clicks in the dog’s head, like, “Oh! This is what I need to do to get this,” and it starts to work for both of you, so I feel like it’s such a rewarding moment just devoting those few moments a day to doing something you really see the benefits of. 

SH [31:08] Absolutely. That lightbulb moment between human and dog is just oh!

NE [31:15] Priceless.

SH [31:15] It is. It’s the best.

NE [31:18] I was curious if you could talk more about the puppy training guides that are part of the program and what those are and what puppy owners can expect to get out of those?

SH [31:28] Sure. There are going to be specific, organized, different modules. Like I mentioned, we do have the module that you can read through, with some resources like that family meeting questionnaire. Those are all going to be in one section, “Before Puppy Comes Home.” Things are organized pretty well that you can kind of go through whether it’s Before Puppy Comes Home, Puppy’s First Day, Puppy’s First Week—to help you plan, to help you organize and also to help you find those written suggestions and modules online, in the course content. And then there’s sections that are devoted just to potty-training, just to house-training. They’re organized into different sets. Same thing with crate-training, because there are definitely different steps sequentially and somewhat concurrently with crate-training. Those are organized into the various steps, as we talked about. Adventure Walks have their own module and their own guide with content and video. Those are all there. Savvy Socialization has its own module. And then some of the training—like the skillets, the behaviors—those will have their own modules as well. 

NE [32:48] It sounds like it just honestly couldn’t be easier to get all this information and have it organized. I think it’s just such a great resource. Can you talk a little bit for our listeners about how new dog owners who have just made a full dog payment through Good Dog can access the program? 

SH [33:05] Sure! What’s going to happen initially is you’re going to be seeing an email that’s going to come out. That will give you a little information. One is going to be a link to register through Zoom. We do our coaching calls through Zoom. It’s also going to have information about how to contact me and my email address (that might be changing in the future, as we’re kind of transitioning and streamlining things). But the email to reach me at is s.hartwig@gooddog.com. And then from there, it’s just going to be the URL for the sections of the Good Dog website to access and to peruse through all the written modules. As far as the Facebook page, that one’s going to be pretty easy. Just do a search on Facebook for “Good Dog Puppy Training Program,” and just put in a request. You can put in a request for membership, access to that page, and then I or somebody else will go through and if you’ve met that set of membership criteria, then we’ll go ahead and approve you.

NE [34:18] Also, just to mention, all Good Breeders get free access to this program, so if you’re a breeder and you want to poke around and experience the program for yourself, I would highly encourage anyone interested to do so just so you can see what you’re recommending to your puppy buyers. It’s just a great resource that I think everyone should take a look at. It sounds like there are obviously a ton of benefits for puppy owners through the Puppy Training Program, but there’s also a lot of benefits for breeders. I was curious if you could talk a little bit more about the benefits that breeders get through this program.

SH [34:55] Absolutely. It is another huge perk! I can say that I know, first-hand being a breeder, that especially the first couple of weeks that your puppies go home, if you have a litter of 12 puppies, chances are that first week, you are going to get 12 phone calls or 12 texts or 12 emails with pretty much the same questions. It’s very time-consuming for us to try to be answering those questions 12 different times in a personal way. That’s where the Puppy Training Program can really be a benefit: for some of those beginning, first foundational steps, that your puppy people can kind of be independently accessing the modules and reading through those. Especially for the adolescent age. Unfortunately, that is the age when a lot of puppies are returned to breeders or they’re dumped at shelters because then some of those naughty teenage testing behaviors are starting to happen and it can be really challenging and frustrating for people. That the modules will actually tackle some of those behavioral challenges and provide support and direction and suggestions and guidance can be a really good benefit, in addition, for breeders because hopefully we are ensuring the successful transition and maturity of these dogs so they’re not getting returned to breeders, they’re not getting dumped at shelters, and (of course) that is the goal that every single breeder really wants: successful puppy placements in homes, and that successful transition and relationship.

NE [36:41] I’m so glad you mentioned that because that sounds like an invaluable benefit for both puppy owners and breeders, and I think everyone benefits from that. We’re keeping the dogs happy. We’re making sure they’re as successful as possible in their new homes with their new families. I’m so glad you mentioned that. I think it is so great for breeders, just as much as it is for puppy buyers, and it’s just an awesome resource. I know you’ve touched on this throughout this whole conversation, but just curious: In summary, how would you say the Puppy Training Program is different from other puppy training programs and what specifically really sets it apart?

SH [37:19] By far, it’s going to be that individual relationship and the support. The other programs aren’t going to help you problem-solve when things aren’t going perfectly, when real life is getting in the way. That definitely is going to be the stand-alone, that relationship and that support.

NE [37:39] Awesome! Thank you so much for taking the time to walk us through the Puppy Training Program. We are so excited that it’s finally launched and offered to our puppy buyers. I think it is just an amazing resource, and we’re so excited to start offering it to puppy buyers and just see people really experiencing it, using it, and learning from you. So thank you again for joining us! This was great. 

SH [38:02] My pleasure! 

NE [38:04] Awesome! Thank you all so much for listening to today’s episode of the Good Dog Pod! We’re so happy we could have Sarah join us to walk us through the amazing Puppy Training Program and the new 0-fee updates to our payment system. We’re so excited about all these changes, and the positive impact that this is going to have on our community of Good Dog Breeders and puppy buyers. If you have questions about the updates to our payment system, how you’re protected, or how to get started using payments through Good Dog and accessing our Puppy Training Program for your puppy buyers, please reach out to us anytime at breederteam@gooddog.com. We would absolutely love to hear from you! Using Good Dog for payments has always been free for breeders. Now that buyers can pay without fees, nothing stands in the way of you getting the full protection and peace of mind that you deserve. 2021 isn’t quite over yet, so keep an eye out for some really exciting announcements in the coming weeks that we can’t wait to share with you. Until then, have a wonderful day! Thank you for tuning in! And we will see you back here next week!