Our Training Philosophy

Our training philosophy is consistent with our overall philosophy – your dog’s body, mind and spirit need to be aligned and balanced to create the happiest and most confident dog possible. Our ultimate goal is to help you facilitate the best relationship possible between you and your dog through balanced and transparent training methods.

With the proper training, you can trust your dog’s behavior with family, friends, children strangers and other dogs.

Jaime Ross, our Chief Operations manager, leads our training program. Jaime has been studying dog training and dog behavior extensively since 2012.

A Dog’s Best Friend Training programs are developed with you and your dog in mind, to assist you in creating an inclusive relationship with you, your dog and your family.

Our training programs are designed specifically for your dog and your family, optimizing the full potential of your dog.  One of the basic premises of our program involves teaching your dog to make good choices on its own while maintaining a calm relaxed state of mind.  Our programs will focus on your dog effectively managing basic obedience commands in the midst of day-to-day distractions that are simply part of everyday life.

Our training is based upon a balanced training approach which will utilize the communication tools most effective for you and your dog. Equally important to providing training for your dog, is to provide training to you and your family to optimize the ongoing success of you and your dog’s relationship.

Our goal is to ultimately help create a relationship with you and your dog as an integral member in your family to be inclusive, successful and happy.

Please call 360-737-6439 for pricing and more information, and click here to be redirected to our training intake form!

Training Options

Our multiple training program options will help ensure you and your dog find the best fit for all of your training needs! Our three different training programs are Puppy Kindergarten, Play & Train and Board & Train.

Play & Train

$ 750

  • Increased control of your dog’s behaviors
  • Leash walking manners
  • Crate acceptance
  • Mastery of commands: Sit, Down, Wait, Place and Thresholds.
  • Daily training sessions with socialization, rest breaks and treats.
  • Training tools as determined appropriate for your dog
  • Go home lesson

Board & Train

$ Call for Pricing

  • Basic obedience, recall, place, crate acceptance, ‘out’ command
  • Practicing commands with distance, duration and distraction
  • Pack walks, field trips and structured socialization
  • Training program designed specifically for you and your dog with your daily struggles and behavior goals in mind
  • Teaching good decision making in the ‘real world’ surrounded by day-to-day distractions
  • Tackle problems such as leash reactivity and anxiety
  • Utilize the communication tools most effective for you and your dog to optimize the success of you and your dog’s relationship
  • Mid-session, go-home lesson and two follow up lessons.

Puppy Kindergarten


Play & Train


Skye's Story


Gulf Coast & Southern Texas Animal Rescue, reached out to us about training Skye, who was about to be surrendered due to her severe stranger danger aggression. The family, that surrendered her, had worked with 2 other trainers and had no progress, so they could no longer keep her. From our understanding, they were unable to take her anywhere or have guests over, because of her reactions to people. We had no idea how bad it really was, until she was dropped off.

The beginning of the video above shows her drop off and our initial interaction with her once the family left. It took 5 days of slow, consistent interactions to gain her trust enough to even remove her harness. 5 days of not being able to touch her. That's nuts!

Once the harness came off, we began a structured and balanced approach to her training. Every day consisted of very clear expectations and a little bit of time to play (and she LOVES to play). Skye spent a lot of time learning that she doesn't need to control things any more. She is finally able to trust her leader and relax. She has had a lot of exposure to strangers and is now able to greet them appropriately.

We are so proud of how far she has come. She is finally ready to find her forever home!

Also, we want to give a shout out to Mud Bay and Natural Pet NW, for giving her treats and helping us (safely) work through some of these stranger issues!