Raising a puppy takes a village and you’re not alone! Let us give you the support you both need.

Our Puppy Playschool program in SE Montavilla, Portland offers dogs ages 8 weeks - 5 months opportunities for dynamic enrichment and training with our team of certified professionals. This program provides ample time and space for both indoor and outdoor enrichment activities and follows a rhythmic schedule that fosters intrinsic canine learning in a peaceful and nurturing setting. The focus of the program is to give puppies the chance to develop and learn at their natural pace.

Each puppy gets regular potty breaks, sniffari strolls, play time with well matched puppies and ongoing training through the day with three Certified Professional Dog Trainers. The group size is maximum six puppies.

Puppy Playschool clients receive videos, photos, training handouts, and tutorials!

Joining the program

• Controlled and strategic socialization to different people, puppies, surfaces, sounds, and sights

• Appropriately greeting people

• Settle on a mat

• Impulse Control

• Better play communication

• Positive separation from their person and comfort being alone

• Loose Leash Walking

• Engagement around distractions

• Recall

• Drop it

• Leave it

• Ability to settle around other people and dogs

• Sit/Down

• Stay

• Wait for food or wait at doors

• A trick of choice and enrichment

• Harness phobia desensitization

• Cooperative care training

Training & Enrichment

This program prioritizes meeting your puppie’s species-specific core needs through enrichment and training. This is a holistic and evidence-based approach intended to help your puppy learn how to navigate modern living with ease while considering their unique personality and needs.

Every puppy gets one-on-one focused training time with our Certified Professional Trainers.

Nap Time

Providing ample time to rest and decompress after each activity is a very important aspect to holistic and effective canine learning. We ensure all Playschoolers get enough quiet time to down-regulate from stimulating activities.

Being able to settle is an incredibly important skill, especially as it’s transferable to other activities and environments, such as working from home or sitting at a cafe or patio.

Socialization & Play

We will systematically expose your puppy to novel sounds, surfaces, handling, and husbandry procedures in a way that builds positive associations. Puppies will also spend time playing with a well-matched classmate or group of classmates.

All puppies get solo training time to practice their unique goals with one of our Certified Professional Trainers.

THIS SERVICE IS:

• A way to meet your puppy’s training and socialization needs when you could use a break! Raising a puppy is hard work!

• A way to provide professional support to a pre-existing training program and to improve skills you are already working on at home, in a class, or with a private trainer.

• This service is intended to be part of a comprehensive program. You will see more progress if you are actively working on a training program at home, in a group class, or with a private coach.

• This service is not a replacement for training your puppy. In order to get the most value from this program we highly recommend enrolling in our Private Training Program and/or our Group Classes as well. Training is for life and a large part of successful life-long training means learning how to train your puppy when your Noble Woof trainers aren’t around.