Dog Training in Cumberland
In-Home & Board and Train

Cumberland is really several towns wearing one name. Valley Falls is old and close-built near the Pawtucket line. Arnold Mills and the Diamond Hill end are stone walls, long driveways and woods. In between sit sixty years of subdivisions. What ties them together is the Blackstone on one side and a set of walking spots that every dog owner in town eventually ends up at.

That is where dog training in Cumberland, RI usually becomes urgent. A dog can be fine for a year on a quiet street and then embarrass you badly the first Saturday you take him somewhere other dogs are.

Best Buddy Dog Training is Shawn Hines, coming to work at your home and in your neighborhood. Relationship-based obedience that doesn't depend on treats, clickers, or e-collars. Because who you are to your dog is everything and no piece of equipment changes that.

Problems We Get Called For Here

The Monastery grounds on a Saturday morning

This is the most heavily walked dog ground in town, and it shows. Loops, open lawn, people circling both directions, a steady supply of oncoming dogs at predictable intervals. Owners come here to socialize a dog and instead give him forty rehearsals a week at exactly the behavior they want gone. Repetition builds whatever it repeats.

Diamond Hill and the open field problem

Space changes everything. On the hill and the fields below it, a dog can put a hundred yards between you and him before he makes a decision about coming back, and by then it is not your decision at all. Recall that works inside a fence is a habit of staying close, not a command. How off-leash training gets built.

The bikeway along the Blackstone

Long, flat, straight, and busy. Cyclists come up behind you with no warning and pass at speed, and a dog who spins to face each one has found a system that works. The bike always leaves. He will keep spinning for as long as that holds true, which is forever.

A big driveway and a busy front door

In the newer parts of town the houses sit back and the yards are open. Deliveries, contractors, kids' friends, the neighbor's car. A dog with a window view and no instructions appoints himself, and he gets paid every time the van drives away. Nobody gave him that job. He took it because it was vacant.

Areas Covered

All of Cumberland: Valley Falls, Ashton, Berkeley, Arnold Mills, Cumberland Hill, the Diamond Hill end and the Mendon Road corridor. Also Lincoln, Woonsocket, Central Falls, Pawtucket, North Smithfield, and over the line into Attleboro and Wrentham. If you are close to the border and not sure whether you are covered, call and ask.

Board and Train

For dogs where four visits will not be enough, board and train runs four to six weeks of full-time residential work. The dog lives with Shawn, not in a kennel run, and trains daily where behavior actually breaks down: sidewalks, stores, parks, real traffic and real people. The trainer does pickup and delivery himself, and three reintegration sessions at your home transfer the trained dog back to the people he lives with. Lifetime phone and video support is included. This is the program for aggression, resource guarding, severe leash reactivity, chronic anxiety, bite history, and dogs nothing else has touched. Pricing is discussed on the phone.

In-Home Dog Training in Cumberland, RI

Four sessions with the head trainer, at and around your address.

Rhode Island in-home program: $2,000. More detail on the in-home training page.

Most people who call have already tried something first, usually a class with a curriculum and a bag of treats. A Cumberland client described the pattern better than we could:

Puppy Training

Eight weeks to six months does most of the work, and very little of it looks like obedience. Housebreaking on a clock, a crate the puppy accepts rather than tolerates, a name that gets a head turn every time, and calm handling before he is big enough to object. A puppy raised on a quiet street and driven everywhere gets a shock at ten months when the world finally shows up. Housebreaking a puppy sets out the schedule.

Questions from Cumberland Owners

We have done two group classes already. Why would this be different?

Different setting, different goal. Sessions happen in your house and on your street, where the behavior lives, and nothing is taught with food.

Can our dog ever be off leash at Diamond Hill or the Monastery?

Plenty of them get there. It comes last, after obedience holds under distraction on leash, and not before.

How many weeks does the in-home program take?

Four sessions spread over several weeks, paced to your dog. The work between sessions produces the change.

We use a prong collar on walks. Do we keep it?

If you feel more confident and in control with it, you can and should keep using it. However, our goal is to make a leash and any collar redundant; your dog should obey and behave wearing any collor or none at all. Read more about my thoughts on different training collars.

Start With a Phone Call

Ring (401) 536-7982 and tell Shawn what is happening with your dog. That first consultation on dog training in Cumberland, RI is free and it is a conversation, not a pitch. Phone hours are Monday through Friday 8am-6pm and Saturday 9am-5pm. Every session is at and around your home. The Rhode Island page covers the rest of the state.

Who you are to your dog is EVERYTHING

Shawn Hines
Dog Trainer, Best Buddy Dog Training