Our Services & Fees

If a professional trainer or behaviorist has already suggested that you need to retire your dog, or drop him from training, I can offer you a second opinion.

I can help you:

  • Select a service dog candidate: including an evaluation of a dog’s temperament and suitability for a working career.

Disclaimer: no evaluation, no matter the age of the dog or skill with which an evaluation is administered provides a guarantee that the dog will ultimately become a suitable and successful Service Dog.

  • Build your puppy or young dog’s enjoyment of socialization experiences.

Socializing and socialization are not the same thing. Taking a puppy out into public (socializing) is not the same as properly training him or her in myriad different situations (socialization). Socializing may simply mean enjoying the company of other dogs from the same household, or familiar people.

Socialization requires a systematic and conscientious introduction of new experiences: meeting people of all ages, sex, size, race, and voice tone; encountering substrates of all sorts; meeting people in unusual garb such as police, soldiers and fire fighters in uniform; hearing sounds of all sorts including sirens, hissing steam pipes, noisy machines, babies crying, children gleefully playing, and loudspeakers blaring. Purposeful socialization experiences should always ensure that the dog remains calm and under threshold for excitement, arousal, aggression and fear.

  • Determine your dog’s readiness for public access training.

I offer guidance about appropriate places and increments of exposure to challenging public access situations. I will not help you try to legitimize taking a pet dog into places of public accommodation where pets are not allowed.

  • Train your dog to perform disability-mitigating tasks and skills.
  • Identify and resolve behavior problems that may be interfering with your dog’s performance of his job.

Behavior issues include: separation anxiety, fear, extreme prey drive, lack of focus, obsessive/compulsive behaviors and aggression.

  • Determine if your dog’s behavior issues necessitate that he or she be retired from public access service work.

 

FEES

  • FREE 10-minute initial phone consultation.

Fill out my questionnaire to get started!

  • Phone Consultations: $175 per hour.

Fee includes a written summary of the information discussed during the consult.

  • On-line consultations: $200 per hour. May include review of video taped temperament evaluations, or training sessions.

Fee includes rental of an on-line classroom through www.e-trainingfordogs.

In the classroom we can simultaneously view and discuss the content of the video in real-time.

Fee also includes a written summary of the consult.

Discounted Package of 4 prepaid, on-line consultations; $750.

  • First in-person consultation $200 per hour.

Fee includes: my travel time, and rental of the training room at S.A.V.E.S. in Lebanon, NH.

Written summary of the information discussed during the consult, and homework in the form of a training plan or behavior exercises to be practiced before the next session.

Continuing in-person sessions $150/hr

Discounted package of 4 pre-paid, in-person training sessions $550.

You will receive a written summary of your training accomplishments and goals for future sessions.

FREE 10-minute initial phone consultation.

Fill out my questionnaire to get started!

Contact Barbara by email: Barbara Handelman or by telephone 802-649-5213  •  Norwich, Vermont

Email: Barbara Handelman
Tel
802-649-5213