Our Services
We offer many different services to fit your goals, schedule, and lifestyle.
Private Lessons
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In these 60-minute sessions, you and your trainer will work together on the specific goals you have for your dog, whether that’s learning essential skills like sit, leave it, and stay, or more advanced skills and even behavior modification. The sessions can take place in your home or at our facility in Brookland. Before your first session, we’ll identify your goals together, and then your trainer will create a tailored plan to reach them.
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Basic Behaviors: Sit, stay, down, come, off, leave it, and many others
Polite Manners: Visitors, doorways, greetings, settling, and more
Loose Leash Walking: Walking with less pulling and more tail wagging
Leash Reactivity: Saying hi to other dogs calmly when out and about
Tricks & Enrichment: Tools and games to play with your dog and engage their brain
Crate Training & Separation-Related Behaviors: Strategies to help your dog feel at ease when they have the house to themselves
Confidence Building: Learning to feel more secure and independent in environments that are new, busy, or scary
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Required virtual meet-and-greet with trainer
Single session: $175
Pack of 5 sessions: $775
See our Policy Page for additional service fees
Specialty Consultations
We’ve designed these sessions to help dog guardians in common but complex situations.
Aggression Consultation
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Realizing that your dog displays aggressive behaviors can be heartbreaking. But with the right force-free, fear-free tools and strategies at your fingertips, a happy, healthy life together is absolutely possible!
The Aggression Consultation is a 2-part service aimed at providing clients with relief, support, and confidence caring for their dog who displays aggressive behaviors.
Part one is a virtual workshop filled with education where we discuss what aggression is, why it happens, how dogs process and manage stress, and how they communicate. It’s a great way to learn more about why your dog might be displaying these behaviors, and helps us approach behavior modification from an emphatic angle.
Part two is an in-person one hour session at the client’s residence. During this session, we’ll put our exercises into practice and ensure the dog responds positively to them, and the client finds them to be realistic to implement into their daily routine.
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Aggression Consultation: $350
Aggression Package (2-hour consultation and 3 1-hour follow up sessions): $750
New Puppy Consultation
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Little pups are so much fun — and so much work! We want to make sure you’re both set up for a lifetime of success, whether you have your puppy now or are planning to adopt one soon.
If your puppy is already at home, we offer a 2-hour, in-home consultation with Nikita Poe, our puppy specialist. If you’re getting ready to adopt soon, Nikita will meet with you for a virtual consultation before your new dog comes home.
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Required virtual meet-and-greet with trainer
First consultation: $350 (2 hours)
Follow-up session: $175 (1 hour)
Follow-up session package: $775 (5 sessions)
Growing Family Consultation
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The Growing Family Consultation is a 2 part service which includes a virtual hour and a 1-hour at-home lesson with our Family Paws Parent Educator, Ian Kilgore. This service is perfect for families welcoming a new (human) baby, or welcoming a new dog to a household with young children! Because of the one on one aspect of the service, we’ll be able to create an integration and management plan based on your specific needs, schedule, and environment
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Required virtual meet-and-greet with trainer
The Growing Family Consultation is $350.
With completion of the consultation, you can commit to a package to continue setting your dog and baby up for success
Baby’s First Year Package - Once a month in-home lessons for the baby’s first year
The Toddler’s Tale Package - Once a week in-home lessons for 4 weeks
Weekend Warrior Workshops
Learning is more fun with friends! Our Weekend Warrior Workshops give you and your pup a great opportunity to work with a trainer and a few other students at locations around DC.
At Patrick’s Pet Care
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Weekend Warrior Workshops cover a variety of topics including clicker training foundations, basic behaviors like Sit, Impulse Control, and Loose Leash Walking. Thanks to the modular scheduling, you can focus on the subjects you need, and can retake workshops as many times as you'd like!
Sign up for these classes to meet at Patrick’s Pet Care in Brookland!
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Where is it?
These Weekend Warrior Workshops are held at the Patrick’s Pet Care Brookland location (3509 12th St NE), except for BMLS 101: Clicker Training Concepts and Foundational Skills, which is a virtual class (A Google Meets link will be emailed in the class confirmation).
How much is it?
Each BMLS, AMCS, AKC CGC workshop is $50 except for BMLS 101: Clicker Training Concepts and Foundational Skills which is $25.
At Colby’s Dog Care and Spa
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Weekend Warrior Workshops cover a variety of topics including clicker training foundations, basic behaviors like Sit, Impulse Control, and Loose Leash Walking. Thanks to the modular scheduling, you can focus on the subjects you need, and can retake workshops as many times as you'd like!
Sign up for these classes to meet at Colby’s Dog Care and Spa in NoMa!
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Where is it?
These Weekend Warrior Workshops are held at Colby’s Dog Care and Spa (200 K St NE, Unit 2).
How much is it?
Each BMLS, AMCS, AKC CGC workshop is $50 except for BMLS 101: Clicker Training Concepts and Foundational Skills which is $25.
Puppy Social Hour
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Come join your puppy for a fun and educational filled Social Hour! During this hour, puppies get plenty of time to play with the other puppies, and be introduced to multiple new and exciting stimuli in a safe and secure environment.
Meanwhile, you'll be able to enjoy some puppy cuddles and ask our puppy specialist questions!
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Puppy Social Hour is held at Patrick’s Pet Care Brookland location (3509 12th St NE) on Saturdays at 230pm.
Puppy Social Hour is $40
Training Walks
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Walking on a leash isn’t as easy as it looks! Training walks help with any behavioral issues your dog might experience out on walks — making everyone’s life a little easier. They’re also a smart choice if you want to hire a traditional dog walking service in the future, but know your dog isn’t ready for that yet.
On a training walk, we’ll address on-leash reactive behaviors, loose-leash walking, and basic manners. We’ll maintain and reinforce the behaviors you want to see, like stopping and sitting at crosswalks, and we’ll reinforce cues like “leave it” to keep your dog engaged and well-mannered.
You can schedule a training walk as a standalone service or use them to supplement what you’re already learning and working on in private or group training sessions.
Training walks are led by a training apprentice who’s in the process of becoming a certified force-free dog trainer. Apprentices are qualified to execute training techniques and protocols so there’s a seamless transition between your private training sessions and real-world walks.
If you're working with a private trainer not affiliated with Force Free DC, we’ll aim to coordinate with that trainer and keep their existing training plan consistent — as long as it aligns with our fear-, force- and pain-free philosophy.
If you’re new to our training walks, you’ll first meet virtually with your apprentice trainer to develop a training plan for your dog and talk through any questions you have. We’ll also set up your online profile together.
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Required virtual meet-and-greet with trainer
Single training walk: $85 (45 minutes)
Pack of 10 training walks: $755
Walks are scheduled between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., based on your location and availability
Training Walks are only available in NW and NE DC
AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluation
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Let your dog show off their good manners (and your good guardianship skills) by passing the American Kennel Club’s Canine Good Citizen assessment with evaluator Ian Kilgore. The test takes between 20 and 30 minutes to complete and requires a 100% score to pass. Don’t worry if your pup misses an item — you can retest right there.
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Required virtual meet-and-greet with our AKC CGC Evaluator
Exam: $50
Gift Cards Available!
Gift Cards Available!
Want to give someone the gift of positive dog training? Purchase a gift card!
To redeem, please email info@forcefreedc.com to have the gift card applied to your initial consultation or group classes!