Just the FAQs

We train at dog-friendly public locations around the Kanawha Valley rather than out of a single commercial building. Your trainer picks the spot each week based on what your dog needs to work on — a quiet lot for early foundation work, then busier places as your dog gets sharper.

There's a real reason we work this way. Any dog looks obedient in their own living room. Obedience only counts when it holds in a parking lot on Corridor G, on a walk through Coonskin Park, or on a sidewalk downtown with people and traffic going by. We do not offer in-home lessons.

We cover Charleston, South Charleston, Teays Valley, Hurricane, Nitro, Elkview, and much of southern West Virginia. Ask us which meeting spot works for you.

Yes, always. Call (304) 244-2025 and you'll talk to someone who actually trains dogs, not a call center. We'll ask what your dog is doing, what you've already tried, and what you want life to look like — then tell you which program fits. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so.

If you'd rather have a trainer put hands on your dog before you commit, book a $30 evaluation. It's 30 minutes, one-on-one, and the $30 comes straight off whatever program you sign up for. Book an evaluation or take our 2-minute assessment quiz.

It comes down to who does the reps.

Lessons mean you do them. You meet your trainer for a private one-hour appointment each week, learn the mechanics, then practice at home between sessions. You end up a genuinely better handler, and it costs less. It needs your time and consistency.

Board and train means we do them. Your dog lives in a professional trainer's home for one to four weeks, works multiple times a day in real environments, and comes back with the behaviors installed. Then we spend a long session teaching you how to keep it.

Rough guide: if your problem is that you don't know how, take lessons. If your problem is that you don't have time, do a board and train. If your dog is aggressive or badly reactive, book an evaluation first and let a trainer decide. Compare programs.

Lessons usually start quickly. Board and train dates are the ones that fill — a good trainer only takes one or two dogs at a time, so the calendar is genuinely limited.

A $500 non-refundable deposit holds your dog's spot. The remaining balance is invoiced and due before training starts. The deposit is non-refundable because when we block those dates for your dog, we turn other dogs away.

If you need to start sooner than the next opening, ask about expedited scheduling: +$100 for one-week programs or +$200 for two-week programs moves you up the list and puts your dog with our head trainer. Call (304) 244-2025 for what's actually open right now.

Everything we sell, with real numbers — no "call for pricing."

Private lessons (one-on-one, never group classes):
Evaluation, 30 min — $30
Puppy Consultation, 1 hr — $100
Puppy Lessons, 4-pack — $315
Basic Marker Mastery, 4 weeks — $450
Basic Obedience, 4 weeks — $625
Basic + Advanced Obedience, 8 weeks — $950
Behavior Modification Lessons, 8 weeks — $1,200
Therapy Dog Preparation, 10 weeks — $1,400

Board and train (your dog lives with the trainer):
1-Week Off Leash — $1,400
2-Week Puppy — $1,600
2-Week Basic — $2,000
2-Week Advanced — $2,800
2-Week Behavior Modification — $3,500
3-Week Severe Behavior Modification — $5,000
4-Week Elite — $5,400

Two things get added, and we'd rather you hear them now than at checkout: 7% West Virginia state sales tax applies to all training regardless of how you pay, and card payments add 3%. See the full pricing page or read our guide to dog training costs in West Virginia.

West Virginia taxes professional services, and dog training is one of them. We're required to collect 7% state sales tax on every program. It applies whether you pay by card, cash, check, or Zelle — there's no way around it and anyone telling you otherwise isn't collecting it properly.

Worked example on a 2-Week Advanced Board & Train at $2,800: add $196 in state sales tax. If you also pay by card, add 3% on top. Want an exact number with any discounts applied? Call (304) 244-2025 and we'll write it out for you.

Yes. Affirm is available on our website for any program. It runs a soft credit check that does not affect your score, and if you're approved you pick a monthly plan — 0% APR options are usually on the table. Affirm pays us up front, you pay Affirm over time, and you skip the 3% card fee entirely.

For board and train we also take a $500 non-refundable deposit to lock dates, then invoice the balance before training starts. We accept cash and check here as well — checks are made out to Wild to Wonderful Dog Training. Lessons are paid in full before the first appointment; we don't take deposits on lessons. Start an Affirm application.

We do. 10% off for households that are past or present military, EMT, firefighter, first responder, or law enforcement. There's also a 10% multi-dog discount if you're signing up more than one dog.

One exception worth knowing up front: Behavior Modification programs are eligible for the military and veteran discount only — they don't qualify for the multi-dog discount. Just mention your service when you call (304) 244-2025 and we'll build it into your quote.

Watch the videos — genuinely, some of it is good. What videos can't do is watch your dog and tell you that your timing is half a second late, or that the thing you think is stubbornness is actually fear.

Most people who call us have already spent six months on YouTube. They're not lacking information; they're lacking feedback. That's the whole job.

There's a cost side too. A dog that bolts, bites, or destroys the house is expensive in ways that dwarf a training bill — and a dog you can't take anywhere quietly shrinks your life. Spread over the years you'll have this dog, training runs well under a dollar a day. See what it comes to.

An e-collar is a remote communication tool. The stimulation is closest to the TENS unit a physical therapist uses — a muscle tingle, not a jolt. It is not a shock collar, it does not burn skin, and it is nothing like a taser. Those are the three myths we hear most and all three are false.

Here's how we settle it: at your first session we put the collar on your arm and let you feel it, and we turn it up on ourselves in front of you. Nobody has to take our word for anything. We don't use a tool on your dog that we won't use on our own arm.

Every dog gets tested for their individual working level — the lowest setting they even notice, which for most dogs is well below what a person can feel. It's a tap on the shoulder, not a punishment. The collars are waterproof too, which matters when your dog is in the Elk River or swimming at Summersville Lake.

No e-collar is used in our Puppy programs or in Basic Marker Mastery, and a trainer may decide it's wrong for a particular behavior case. See which programs include it.

Then we won't use one. Basic Marker Mastery ($450, 4 weeks) is built for exactly this — a slip lead, a clicker, and a long line, with everything driven by marking and rewarding. It covers come, sit, place, and leash work, with heavy emphasis on confidence building and clean fundamentals.

It's a favorite for soft or nervous dogs, for owners who want a purely reward-based path, and for anyone who wants to see how the marker system works before deciding anything else. All of our puppy programs are e-collar free as well. Look at Marker Mastery.

No. In the house your dog will be listening without it within days. What we do recommend is putting it on before off-leash time outdoors — the same way you put a seatbelt on for a five-minute drive.

In this part of the state that's not theoretical. A deer breaking out of a treeline, a groundhog, a stray on a back road — it takes one second of a dog not hearing you. The collar is what lets you end that moment instead of watching it happen.

No. Every lesson we teach is private, one-on-one with a trainer. Group classes split one instructor across eight or ten dogs, which works fine for a puppy that just needs exposure and works poorly for almost everything else.

A private session runs at your dog's pace, on your dog's actual problems. If your dog is reactive, a group class is often the worst possible environment — you spend an hour managing a meltdown instead of training. Most people who call us have already done the group class.

Honest answer: no, we don't do boundary training, and we won't train your dog on your fence company's collar.

What we can do is teach a recall so solid that the fence stops being your only safety net. We use the e-collar's beep paired with a verbal command, which teaches your dog exactly what the collar means and makes them dramatically more responsive when you call.

On a hillside property with no real fence line, that recall is worth more than the buried wire. But we won't promise your dog will hold a boundary, because that's not what we're training.

Your dog moves into a professional trainer's home for one to four weeks. Not a kennel run — a house, with structure, a crate routine, and multiple short training sessions every day.

The work doesn't stay at home either. Dogs get taken out into real places around the Kanawha Valley — parking lots, hardware stores, sidewalks, parks — because a sit that only works in the backyard isn't worth paying for.

You get daily updates with video, every day, so you're watching it happen rather than wondering. At the end there's a long go-home session where your trainer hands the dog back and teaches you every command, every tool, and every bit of timing. See the board and train options.

1-Week Off Leash — $1,400. Come, sit, and place off leash around the home, plus household manners: greeting, doors, food, jumping, counters. Best for a basically decent dog that needs the edges cleaned up.

2-Week Basic — $2,000. Everything above plus leash work, on-leash control in high distraction, off-leash in low distraction, and dog-friendly public outings. Details.

2-Week Advanced — $2,800. Full on- and off-leash reliability in high distraction, adding down and heel. Includes free obedience refresher lessons for the life of your dog. This is our most popular program. Details.

4-Week Elite — $5,400. Everything in Advanced plus send-away to place, sit in motion, pushups, distance down, and one command you choose. 12+ public outings, a 30-minute video call with your trainer at the halfway mark, and lifetime refreshers. Details.

Add 7% state sales tax, and 3% if paying by card.

This is the right question to ask, and it's where cheap board-and-trains fall down. A dog sent home without the owner being trained will drift back within a month. That's not the dog failing — that's the program failing.

So every board and train ends with a long go-home session. Your trainer walks you through every command, hands you the leash, and makes you do it until it's yours. You leave able to run your own dog.

After that: 2-Week Advanced and 4-Week Elite include free one-hour obedience refreshers for the lifetime of your dog — and that stands even if you move out of state. Behavior modification programs include four weekly one-hour follow-up lessons once your dog is home.

Day to day, keeping it sharp takes about 10 to 15 minutes folded into your normal routine. Not an hour in the yard. Ask us how the follow-up works.

Usually yes. If your trainer's calendar is clear for the extra dates, you can move up — say from a 2-Week Basic into a 2-Week Advanced. Two conditions: you pay the difference, and you tell us before the current program ends so the dates can be held. Trainers often see the potential mid-program and will bring it up themselves. Call (304) 244-2025.

In a board and train, off-leash work starts in the first week and gets proofed from there. 1-Week gets you off leash around the house. 2-Week Basic gets you off leash in low distraction. 2-Week Advanced is where it holds up in high distraction — the version most people picture when they say "off leash."

Through lessons, the same result takes 4 to 8 weeks depending on the package, because the reps happen at your pace between appointments. Either way it's backed by our off-leash obedience guarantee on adult obedience programs.

Start now — at 9 weeks you're inside the window that matters most. Between 8 and 16 weeks a puppy's brain is wide open to new experiences, and what happens then shapes the adult dog more than anything you do later.

Our program ages are specific, so here they are plainly:

2-Week Puppy Board & Train — ideally 10 to 12 weeks, and we cannot take puppies older than 16 weeks for this program.
Puppy Consultation ($100) and Puppy Lessons ($315) — from 8 weeks, and a good place to start today.
Adult obedience and any e-collar program — 20 weeks and up.

If your puppy is 17 weeks and you just missed the puppy board and train, that's fine — we'll put you into lessons and pick up the adult program at 20 weeks. See the puppy board and train.

Your puppy needs two full sets of vaccines covering distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis, parvovirus, and parainfluenza, and the most recent set must be at least 3 days (72 hours) old before the start date so it's had time to take.

Don't skip lepto here. It spreads through standing water and wildlife urine, and between the creeks, the river bottoms, and the raccoon population in this part of West Virginia, exposure is a genuine risk — not a formality. Send us a photo of the records if you're unsure and we'll check them. (304) 244-2025.

The 2-Week Puppy Board & Train ($1,600) is about building a good foundation, not finishing a trained dog. It covers potty training with a "go potty" cue, crate training and a real routine, positive socialization to new people, animals, surfaces and sounds, play and engagement so your puppy learns to work with a person, impulse control, and house manners — greeting, doors, food, jumping, counters.

We shape the early commands — come, sit, place, down, leash — and spend time getting your puppy comfortable with grooming and vet handling, which your vet will thank you for in about eight years.

Being straight with you: there is no off-leash guarantee on this program. Puppies mature on their own schedule and anyone promising off-leash reliability on a 12-week-old is selling something. What you get is a puppy with the right habits, ready for real obedience at 20 weeks. Program details.

Yes. Our online puppy course is a $199 program — 24 modules, 8 worksheets, and about 3 hours of video covering crate training, confidence, marker work, and rewards. We give it away free. Call or message us and we'll send you the code, whether or not you ever book a session with us.

We also publish free written guides: crate training, socialization, and loose leash walking. Start there tonight. Call (304) 244-2025 for the free course code.

Three things, and there's no fourth: a schedule, real supervision, and a crate.

Out first thing in the morning, after every meal, after every nap, and last thing at night. Reward the second they finish outside — not when they come back in, because by then you're rewarding coming back in. Crate them any time you can't actually watch them. Clean every accident with an enzymatic cleaner, since regular cleaners leave a scent marker that tells your puppy to go there again.

Most puppies are solid in 4 to 8 weeks. If you're past that and still having daily accidents, something in the routine is off and it's worth an hour with a trainer. Read our crate training guide.

It describes how a newly adopted dog decompresses. 3 days: overwhelmed, possibly hiding, refusing food, or shut down entirely. 3 weeks: settling into your routine and starting to test what the rules are. 3 months: relaxed, and showing you who they actually are.

Two practical takeaways. Don't judge a dog by week one — the shut-down dog and the wild dog are often the same dog at different stages. And don't wait out the full three months before setting rules, because the habits formed in weeks two and three are the ones that stick. With the number of dogs coming out of Kanawha Valley shelters and rescues, this is worth knowing before you bring one home.

Yes, and it's a large part of what we do. Aggression, reactivity, fear, and anxiety all get a program built around the individual dog's triggers and history. A good number of our clients arrive after being turned away somewhere else.

Three conditions, all non-negotiable:

An evaluation comes first. No trainer should take an aggression case sight unseen — they need to meet the dog and decide honestly whether they're the right handler for it.

Your dog must be muzzle trained before arrival. You buy a properly fitted muzzle and condition your dog to wear it happily. We give you a free muzzle conditioning course covering measuring and conditioning. A muzzle slapped on at drop-off is worse than none.

We don't promise a cure. We can teach your dog to handle their emotions, give you tools that work, and reduce dangerous behavior enormously. Any trainer guaranteeing to eliminate aggression is lying to you. Read about our behavior modification programs.

There's a fairly clear line between them.

2-Week Behavior Modification — $3,500. Anxiety, reactivity, or aggression that has stayed at the level of noise. Lunging, barking, growling, big displays — but no bite. Details.

3-Week Severe Behavior Modification — $5,000. The right call if your dog has actually bitten a person or another dog, has shown they'll follow through rather than bluff, or has anxiety severe enough to hurt themselves. It's also the better fit for very fearful dogs — you can't rush trust, and a scared dog needs the extra week before real work can start. Details.

Both include four weekly one-hour follow-up lessons afterward. Those four can also be moved to before the board and train if your dog needs to warm up to the trainer first. If you're not sure, book the evaluation — it's $30 and it removes the guesswork.

Probably not, and we'd rather tell you that than sell you a $3,500 program you don't need.

A dog who barks or whines in the crate but is otherwise fine out of it — not injuring themselves, not chewing the crate apart, not panicking for hours — almost always has a conditioning problem, not an anxiety disorder. That gets solved inside a normal obedience program, or sometimes with one lesson and a better routine.

Real separation anxiety looks different: bloody paws or gums from trying to escape, destroyed doorframes, hours of unbroken panic, refusing food entirely. That belongs in behavior modification, where the work is structure, crate conditioning, and teaching a dog how to regulate themselves.

Describe what you're seeing on the phone and we'll tell you which one it is. Get in touch.

Very. Leash reactivity is one of the most common calls we get and one of the most fixable, because most of it isn't aggression at all — it's frustration or fear made worse by the leash. A loose dog that's uncomfortable simply moves away. A leashed dog can't, so it escalates instead. Owners then tighten up on the leash, the dog feels the tension, and the whole thing feeds itself.

We break that cycle by changing your dog's default response and fixing your handling at the same time — both halves are required. 8-Week Behavior Modification Lessons ($1,200) pair four foundation lessons with four scenario lessons built on your dog's actual triggers. Read our guide on leash reactivity.

Yes. Therapy Dog Preparation is a 10-week course at $1,400, one-on-one with a trainer, preparing your dog for the Public Access Test. The test is scheduled after the ten lessons are finished, not during.

One hard requirement: your dog cannot have behavioral issues to enter this program. Therapy work means strangers reaching for your dog, wheelchairs, walkers, dropped equipment, children moving unpredictably. A dog who is merely tolerant isn't a candidate — it needs to be genuinely stable.

There's a second route as well: complete a 2-Week Advanced Board & Train and then sit the test separately, in which case the test costs $150. Program details.

Three separate things that get mixed up constantly.

Service dog — trained to perform specific tasks for a handler with a disability. Full ADA public access rights. The dog works for its own handler.

Therapy dog — provides comfort to other people in hospitals, schools, nursing homes, and libraries. Visits happen by invitation only. No automatic public access rights; a therapy vest does not let you take your dog into a grocery store.

Emotional support animal — provides comfort by existing. No task training required, no public access rights, and certificates sold online are meaningless.

We prepare therapy dogs. Learn more.

Less than people fear. 10 to 15 minutes, two or three times a day, and short sessions beat long ones every time — you want to stop while your dog is still switched on, not grind them down.

The bigger win is stopping thinking of it as "practice" at all. Sit before the bowl goes down. Place while you cook. A recall across the yard before you let them back in. That's a dozen reps a day that cost you nothing, and it's how trained dogs stay trained. We show you exactly how to build this in during your go-home session. More ideas for busy owners.

Recall under real distraction. Everything else is easier than convincing a dog to abandon something they want and come back to you instead.

Sit and down are mechanical. Recall is a choice, and you're asking the dog to make the harder one — every time, including the time a deer crosses the road. That's why "come" is the command most dogs technically know and reliably fail.

It's also the whole reason this company is called Off Leash K9. We build it through progressive proofing: easy conditions first, then steadily harder ones, until the answer stops being a decision and becomes a reflex. Second hardest is a long place or stay, for the same reason — it's impulse control, not obedience.

Not remotely. Eight is a great age to train, and older dogs often move faster than puppies — longer attention span, better impulse control, and they've stopped teething on the furniture.

The old saying is wrong. What's true is that an older dog has more established habits to work around, so the trainer has to be a bit more thoughtful. We adjust for joints, stamina, and hearing, and some of the biggest transformations we've had were dogs well into double digits. See what our clients say.

No. Some breeds are slower, and that gets called stubborn.

The breeds people name as easiest — Labs, Goldens, Border Collies, Poodles, German Shepherds — are easy mainly because they're desperate to work with a person. A hound following a scent line or a livestock guardian doing the job it was bred for isn't defying you; it's running a different program. It takes better motivation and clearer communication, not more force.

We've trained everything from Chihuahuas to Great Pyrenees, beagles to Malinois, in every corner of this state. Breed changes the route, not the destination. More about how we train.

Usually less than people hope. A dog park is a group of strangers' dogs with no shared rules and owners mostly on their phones. For a confident, well-socialized dog it can be fine. For a nervous or reactive dog it's often where the first bad experience happens — and one bad experience can create months of reactivity.

Structured play with known dogs, or a good long walk with training folded in, does more for most dogs than an hour of chaos. We wrote this up in detail.

We work throughout Charleston and southern West Virginia, including Charleston, South Charleston, Teays Valley, Hurricane, Nitro, Elkview, Fayetteville, Oak Hill, Beckley, Huntington, Logan, Princeton, Lewisburg, Point Pleasant, Summersville, and Parkersburg.

That covers Kanawha, Putnam, Cabell, Fayette, Raleigh, Greenbrier, Nicholas, Mercer, Logan, and Mason counties among others. Outside that range we can often arrange to meet partway — worth a call before you assume we can't reach you. Check your area.

Four things to check, and they're all things you can verify yourself.

Do they publish prices? A trainer who won't give you a number until you're on the phone is planning to price you, not quote you.

Can they show you their own results? Not stock footage or franchise reels — actual before-and-after video of dogs they personally trained. Ours are here.

Will they let you watch? Anyone who won't let you observe a session is hiding their methods.

Do they tell you what they can't do? This is the real tell. A trainer who guarantees they'll cure aggression, or promises an off-leash puppy, is telling you what you want to hear. Honest limits are a sign of competence.

We publish every price including tax and card fees, we say plainly that behavior modification carries no guaranteed cure, and every lesson is private. Read our reviews.

Our off-leash obedience guarantee covers our adult e-collar obedience programs — the lessons and board and trains built around off-leash reliability. If your dog isn't performing the commands that program covers, we keep working with you.

Two honest exclusions, stated up front rather than buried:

Puppy programs carry no off-leash guarantee. A 12-week-old puppy isn't developmentally ready and we won't pretend otherwise. That program builds foundations.

Behavior modification carries no guaranteed "fix." Aggression and severe anxiety are managed and dramatically improved, not cured. Any trainer promising otherwise is overselling, and you should be suspicious of them.

We'd rather lose a sale than make a promise we can't keep.

Different products, and worth being fair about it. Big-box classes run roughly $120 to $300 for six weeks, with 8 to 12 dogs in a store aisle. For a puppy that mostly needs friendly exposure and a basic sit, that's genuinely fine and it's cheap.

What it won't give you is off-leash reliability, individual attention, or anything useful for a reactive dog — you'll spend six weeks managing your dog instead of training them.

We do private one-on-one lessons and immersive board and train, priced accordingly, with a guarantee on adult obedience programs and support that continues after you finish. Plenty of our clients come to us second. Compare what we offer.

Possibly, and we'll tell you if there is. Off Leash K9 Training has 130+ locations nationwide. We cover Charleston and southern West Virginia; if you're up toward Morgantown, Bridgeport, or Clarksburg, our northern West Virginia team is closer to you.

Anywhere else, check the national Find a Trainer directory, or just call (304) 244-2025 and we'll point you the right way even if it's not to us.