Why Your Dog’s Comfort Zone is Slowing Their Progress

When your dog’s acting up at home, it’s tempting to think, “I should have the trainer come here and see this chaos firsthand!”

It seems logical, right? 

Most people assume that the best way to address their dog’s naughty behavior is to see it in action where it happens the most—in their home. 

Here’s why this will actually slow down your dog’s progress.

Why In-Home Training Sounds Great (But Isn’t)

Pros:

Convenient for You: No packing up the dog, no traveling—just open your front door and the trainer is there.
See the Behavior in Action: It’s natural to think, “If the trainer sees my dog misbehaving here, we’ll fix it faster.”

But here’s the problem: 

When your dog is in their comfort zone (AKA their home), they’re surrounded by familiar smells, routines, and habits—including the bad ones.

They’ve got a whole list of behaviors that they’ve practiced and repeated day in and day out in your home.

What they need is to be taken out of their comfort zone, away from the triggers and distractions, and into an environment where we can teach them new habits without the baggage of old ones.

Cons:

• Your Dog Needs a Reset: When we take your dog out of their home, we disrupt those ingrained bad habits. This makes it easier for us to build new, better ones without constantly battling their old ones.

• Bad Habits Die Hard: If we never see the bad behavior—or rarely—it means we’re doing something right!

• You’re Doing Most of the Work: In-home training requires you to be the main trainer all week long, between sessions. Sure, we’ll give you tips and techniques to try, but you’re still doing the heavy lifting.

• It’s More Expensive: In-home sessions with an experienced trainer will cost quite a bit more.

• Slower Results: Dogs who come to our training facility make leaps and bounds faster than those we work with at home. 

The Bottom Line:

We do in-home training sessions every month, but we save them for when they are exactly what the dog needs. Typically this is towards the end of the dog’s training program. 

In-home sessions are convenient, sure. But they are also more expensive, results take longer, and they put too much responsibility on you. Let us do the heavy lifting by putting your dog in one of our day training or boarding school programs.

Ready to get started? Let’s get your dog out of their comfort zone and into a brand-new, well-behaved life!