Dog Training in Bronxville, NY
In-Home & Board and Train

Bronxville is about a square mile and a good deal of it is stacked. Co-ops and apartment buildings sit within a few minutes' walk of the station, the village center runs a handful of blocks, and almost every dog here shares a lobby, a hallway and an elevator with people he did not choose. A dog who barks at footsteps in the corridor is heard by four apartments, and a dog who pulls on Pondfield Road has nowhere to pull to.

Best Buddy Dog Training is a single trainer. Shawn Hines has been at this more than fifteen years, and the training is relationship-based obedience - no treats, no food lures, no clickers, no prong collars, no e-collars. What changes a dog is who you are to him, day in and day out, in the room he lives in.

For Bronxville and the rest of Westchester, Shawn travels to you. He drives up from Warwick, Rhode Island and works in your apartment, your building and your village - not in a rented hall, because there isn't one and there never was.

What Owners Here Are Dealing With

Barking that belongs to the whole building

In a co-op, your dog's habits are a shared problem. The board hears about it, the neighbor hears it at seven in the morning, and you start planning the day around keeping him quiet. Barking at the hallway is a dog announcing that the corridor is his business. Once he is convinced it isn't, the noise stops - he has been relieved of the job, not silenced.

A village with no room to maneuver

Walk from the station up through the center and you pass other dogs at arm's length. There is no arcing away on those blocks. An owner with a reactive dog choreographs every outing, and a walk that needs choreography is a walk the dog has not been trained for.

The platform at rush hour

A crowded Metro-North platform is a narrow strip with a train arriving on it. Dogs who are fine on the sidewalk lose composure when noise, crowding and movement stack up. That is not a quirk. It is a dog who has never been asked to hold still while something big happens.

Small apartment, big dog, long day

A lot of dogs here are alone from early morning until evening in a few hundred square feet, then expected to be relaxed and social the moment the household walks in. Owners add a longer evening walk to compensate. The walk tires him out; it does not teach him how to live quietly in a small apartment. Only one of those two jobs is getting done.

Where We Work

The blocks around the station and the village center, Lawrence Park and the hill streets, the co-op buildings on the Yonkers and Eastchester edges, and the area near Sarah Lawrence College. We also cover Tuckahoe, Eastchester, Yonkers, Mount Vernon and Scarsdale. If your address says somewhere else but you walk your dog in Bronxville, call anyway.

Board and Train

Four to six weeks, full time, your dog living with Shawn and training every day in genuine public environments - shops, sidewalks, traffic, parks - rather than being warehoused in a kennel run between lessons. Shawn does the pickup and delivery himself, and three reintegration sessions take place at your home afterward so what the dog learned belongs to you and not to the trainer. It is built for aggression, resource guarding, severe leash reactivity, chronic anxiety, bite history, and dogs that nothing has worked on so far. Pricing is discussed on the consultation. Read board and train.

In-Home Dog Training in Bronxville, NY

• 4 personalized in-home sessions with the head trainer, in your apartment and on your street
• A customized obedience and behavior modification plan specific to your dog
• Lifetime follow-up support by phone and video at no additional charge
• One flat price covering up to five dogs in the same household
• No hidden fees. If you have followed the plan and need more sessions, they are included

The New York in-home program is $2,500. See in-home dog training for the shape of the program.

Puppies in an Apartment

A puppy in a building learns the hallway before he learns anything else, and whatever he decides about it at four months is what you will argue with at two years. Start with the door, the leash, the elevator and where he is allowed to be indoors. Housebreaking takes planning when the nearest grass is a block away and three floors down - how to housebreak a puppy has the routine.

Questions We Hear in Bronxville

Do you come to a co-op, and can you work in the common areas?

Yes. The lobby, the hallway and the elevator are where the complaints come from, so that is where a good part of the session happens.

We did a group class in the area and he graduated.

Graduating a class means your dog performed in a room full of dogs doing the same thing. The village sidewalk is not that room, and a standard that only exists in one building is not a standard.

Our dog is small. Does any of this apply?

All of it. Small dogs in dense housing get away with behavior nobody would tolerate from a big dog, which is why they end up with the worst habits on the street.

How do we know this holds after the four sessions?

Because the follow-up support is lifetime, by phone and video, at no charge. Call in six months if something slips. Owners describe how that went on testimonials.

Get the Free Consultation

Call (401) 536-7982 and speak directly to Shawn about dog training in Bronxville, NY. A real conversation about your dog, not a sales script, and a straight answer about which program fits. Office hours are Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday 9am to 5pm. Call anytime and leave a message if there's no answer. Feel free to reach out via text message, or from the cnotact page. There is no facility to visit - we come to your building.

Who you are to your dog is EVERYTHING

Shawn Hines
Dog Trainer, Best Buddy Dog Training