Frequently asked
10 questions, answered plainly. If yours is not here, ask us.
Before you start
Whether the programme fits you, your dog and where you are now.
No — and starting before you do is better. The first three tracks are handler education, preparing your home, and choosing the right puppy. People who work through those before collecting a puppy have a noticeably easier first month.
No. The handler training, the obedience progression and the health and first-aid material apply to any dog. Working breeds are the reference point because the programme is built to the standard they demand — a dog with real drive, sharp environmental awareness and enough physical capability to hurt someone by accident. Train to that standard and a steadier dog is comfortably covered. Only the breed-specific material — line differences, temperament testing, breed health risks — is written around the working shepherds.
No. You will skip the puppy-selection and arrival material and start at handler foundations, then work the obedience track from the beginning. Adult dogs often learn the mechanical skills faster; what takes longer is undoing habits that have been rehearsed for years.
How it runs
What the programme asks of you week to week.
Reading a lesson takes ten to twenty minutes. Training takes about fifteen minutes a day, split into three sessions of five. Short and frequent beats long and occasional by a wide margin, particularly with a young dog.
Not at launch. The written lessons, diagrams and photographs come first, because they are what you can read one-handed in a back yard with a leash in the other hand. Video is planned for the skills where seeing the mechanics genuinely matters.
Yes, and the platform expects it. Each dog gets its own profile, its own progress through the dog tracks and its own journal. Your handler-track progress is recorded once, against you, and carries across every dog.
Scope and limits
What the programme deliberately does not do, and why.
No, deliberately. That work is dangerous to teach in writing and carries real legal exposure. If it is your goal, this program builds the obedience and handler foundation a club will expect you to arrive with, and then you go to a club.
It can teach you task training and the public-access standard, and it explains what the law actually requires. It cannot certify anything, because in the United States no service-dog certification exists. Anyone selling you a registry, certificate or ID card is selling nothing.
No. It helps you recognise a problem early, act sensibly in an emergency, and know which things cannot wait. Every one of those lessons points you to a veterinarian for the judgement calls.
Each lesson has a troubleshooting section for the common failure modes, and the material is explicit about when a problem is beyond what any written program should try to fix. Where that line is, we say so and tell you what kind of professional to look for.