What is Canine Coaching Institute?

Canine Coaching Institute, LLC was founded by dog trainer Sarah Greenwald in August of 2017 after she trained her personal dog Trisha, a Black Lab/Australian Shepherd (Aussidor) to be her service dog. Although she had grown up with dogs and taking them to classes and working with them, it wasn’t until she went through the service dog training with Trisha that she realized she had a passion and talent for working with dogs. Sarah is a member of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT) and is a certified American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen (AKC CGC) Evaluator. She attends several in person and online training seminars each year to stay up to date on the latest in dog training, learning theory, and to better herself as a dog trainer and handler.

At Canine Coaching Institute, LLC we are force, pain, fear and dominance free. What does this mean? This means that we do not use physical force to manipulate a dog into doing something. This does not promote learning or a good relationship between handler and dog. We do not use pain to punish bad behaviors. This means that we do not use tools such as prong collars, shock collars or choke collars. Inflicting pain and discomfort on an animal in an attempt to correct behavior or train a new behavior is scientifically unsound. In many cases the animal will shut down or become frustrated and, in some cases, may react in undesirable ways such as attacking the handler in an extreme attempt to escape the pain. Fear is something we avoid as well. If an animal is afraid, stressed or anxious they can’t learn. Could you learn in that state of mind? Using dominance to train a bad behavior out of a dog is typically unsuccessful and in many cases can actually cause more problems than it solves.

We here at Canine Coaching Institute, LLC believe that every dog wants to be a good dog and that with a little help they can be! Our methods focus on positive reinforcement. This means we show the dog what behaviors we want without using force, pain, fear or dominance. Instead we help the dog learn what we are asking for through techniques such as shaping, food luring, etc. We use rewards such as praise, food and toys to show them that what they did was a desirable behavior and to encourage it. This lays a foundation for trust between the handler and the dog and will help promote a spirit of cooperation in the relationship.

If your dog is struggling with behavioral issues such as aggression or reactivity around other dogs or people we again address this in a positive way. We believe that punishing a dog for a behavior that, in most cases, is caused by fear will only provoke more fear and anxiety in those situations. Instead, we use scientifically sound methods such as counter-conditioning and desensitization to help these dogs create a positive association with what they originally viewed as negative or scary. Please note that while we do not take cases where the dog already has a bite record (with people or dogs), we can certainly help refer you to a certified behaviorist near you that can help.

Canine Coaching Institute, LLC offers a variety of services including private in-home training, group classes, minor to moderate behavior modification, Therapy Dog training, Service Dog training and Emotional Support Animal/Dog training. We pride ourselves in being flexible trainers that can find ways to work with practically any type of dog. If you think your dog is too stubborn or difficult to deal with, we welcome the challenge!

For our private in-home, behavior modification, therapy, service and emotional support dog clients we are happy to bring you a completely customized training plan specific to the needs and situation of you and your dog. This plan gives an overview of the challenges the dog is facing, what your goals are, what the steps are to attaining those goals, a schedule for training sessions, homework assignments for between sessions, progress reports, access to help from your trainer via phone, text, email or our internal messaging system and more!

For individuals interested in our classes you can find a variety of class difficulties, from beginners to advanced. In these classes we follow our custom curriculum that lays a solid foundation in communication and trust between you and your dog. While we do follow a weekly class plan and our curriculum, we do love being flexible with how we teach things in order to accommodate all dogs/handlers/skill levels in our classes. There is never just one way of learning things and some ways work better for some dogs than others.