Dog Training for Sensitive, Anxious, and Reactive Dogs
Your puppy is already learning. Not from lessons — from the doorway, the stairs, the hand that reaches too quickly. The only open question is what.
Enjoy puppyhood while building the nervous-system foundation your dog will carry for life: confidence, recovery, social ease, loose-leash foundations, and relationship-first learning from day one.
Coaching Canine Companions offers positive, nervous-system-first puppy training for puppies 8–20 weeks old. The work focuses on early socialization, potty training, confidence, recovery, body awareness, loose-leash foundations, and relationship-based learning before fear, reactivity, or over-arousal patterns become deeply rehearsed.
This is not a correction-based puppy class. It is early Field-Based Regulation Training: prevention, emotional safety, structured exposure, parent education, and positive reinforcement built around the puppy’s developing nervous system.
The nervous-system foundation you build now lasts a lifetime.
A puppy's sensitive period for socialization opens at around three weeks and has already begun narrowing by twelve to fourteen. It does not slam shut. It closes the way daylight closes — gradually, and then you notice it is dark. What a puppy meets during that stretch, and how they recover from it, becomes their working assumption about the world.
Researchers place this period at roughly three to twelve weeks. The edges are not sharp, and they vary by dog, by breed, and by what happened before you met.
So the first lessons here are not commands. They are experience, arranged carefully enough that a puppy can be startled and come back. That returning is the skill. Everything else is built on top of it.
A word about correction. Punishment can stop a behavior in the moment. What the research keeps finding is the price paid elsewhere: studies of aversive and confrontational handling report more fear, more anxiety, more aggression, and a thinner bond between dog and person. Most of that work is observational, so it shows association rather than proof of cause. It is consistent enough that we do not build on it. Every session here is reward-based and relationship-first.
Most behavior programs begin after the dog is already reactive, fearful, over-aroused, or difficult to recover. Puppy training gives us the rare chance to work earlier — before the nervous system has practiced those patterns hundreds of times.
This is why your puppy’s first lessons include more than sit, stay, and potty training. We build orientation, recovery, body confidence, social discernment, loose-leash rhythm, and relationship with the human from the very beginning.
Four core principles that form the foundation of every puppy session — grounded in behavioral science, relationship, body awareness, and positive connection.
Positive reinforcement is the core foundation of all puppy training. Physical punishment is not just ineffective — it's harmful. Science is clear on this.
When your puppy engages in unwanted behavior — like chewing your socks — the response isn't punishment. It's redirection through a three-step pattern:
When your puppy is doing anything you love — resting calmly, chewing appropriately, showing curiosity — softly praise them in the moment. This grows the behaviors you want through genuine positive reinforcement, and deepens your bond.
Puppies operate in a simple black-and-white world: they either seek what feels good, or avoid what doesn't. Keep it simple. Don't overthink it — and always check whether your own energy is helping or confusing your pup.
One bites down a little past the line. The other yelps and stops. There is a pause, a few seconds long, and then almost always they begin again — gentler.
The lesson is not the bite. It is the pause, and the coming back.
Play is where a dog first practices everything we later call manners: how much is too much, when to stop, how to read a body that has had enough, how to come back after getting it wrong.
Not every dog can do it. Some come in too hard and never notice the other dog going quiet. Some hover at the edge of the group and never find the way in. Some misread the room entirely — a play bow taken as a threat, a chase that stopped being a game two minutes ago and nobody told them. None of that is a character flaw. Social play is a skill. Skills are either learned or they are not.
A dog who learns it is calmer, steadier, easier to live with. Not because play wore them out. Because play is where they practiced stopping.
Misfit to Marvel is a self-paced course in reading that conversation and steering it. The video lessons break real play down slowly enough that you start catching the missteps before they land — the stiffening, the held breath, the second the game tips. There are exercises to run in your own yard this week, and guides and checklists to take outside with you. Nothing to attend, no schedule to keep. You buy it once and work at your own pace.
See what is inside Misfit to Marvel →Nine areas of development — all delivered in a positive, enrichment-focused environment that builds confidence, recovery, and relationship from the inside out.
Address fear responses before they become lifelong patterns.
Structured, safe introduction to people, places, sounds, and other animals.
Science-backed reinforcement that builds reliable behaviors through joy.
Potty routines built around your puppy’s actual rhythm — sleep, food, water, and the walk to the door.
Games and challenges that build a calm, curious, self-assured puppy.
Physical enrichment that develops body awareness and emotional regulation.
Foundational obedience — sit, stay, come, leave it — built on trust, not pressure.
You leave each session with tools, resources, and the confidence to continue at home.
Early leash skills taught as connection, orientation, rhythm, and shared movement — not pulling, pressure, or correction.
Clarity matters most here. This page is for early prevention and puppy development, not for severe adolescent or adult behavior cases.
No two puppies are the same — and neither are any two training programs here.
Initial Evaluation First. Before training begins, Lorrie evaluates your puppy's temperament, breed tendencies, and behavioral baseline — then creates a direction tailored specifically to them.
Fully Personalized Program. Your puppy's training plan is built around your pup — not a generic group class template. You're kept informed and involved every step of the way.
Always Available. Lorrie is available to answer every puppy concern that comes up between sessions — no unanswered questions.
Take-Home Resources. Every program includes a comprehensive learning packet so training continues effectively at home between sessions.
Real, Lasting Results. By the end of the program, your puppy has foundational manners, obedience, and the emotional stability to thrive in the human world.
Earlier is quieter. Less to undo, less to explain, less that has already been rehearsed a hundred times. Bring your puppy in and we will start by looking at where they actually are.
Book Your Free Meet & GreetNo obligation. 100% free. Lorrie will evaluate your puppy and map out the right path forward.
If your puppy has already outgrown this window:
Explore the Day Training Program →Lorrie's house-training guide is free to download: the schedule, the holding-time chart by age, the accident log, and the two rules the whole thing rests on. You can start using it tonight.
Professional Accreditations
If your puppy is under 20 weeks, this is the best place to begin. If your dog is older, already overwhelmed, or showing reactivity, the next step may be Field-Based Day Training or the 90-Day Field Immersion.
Puppy training can begin at 8 weeks old. The sensitive period for socialization opens at around three weeks and is already narrowing by twelve to fourteen, so this is the natural time to build confidence, recovery, safe exposure, and relationship-based learning. The edges of that period vary from dog to dog.
Yes. Coaching Canine Companions uses positive reinforcement, structured guidance, play, food, praise, relationship, and nervous-system-first support. The program does not rely on punishment, intimidation, or dominance-based methods.
Socialization does not mean flooding a puppy with every dog, person, and environment. It means emotionally safe exposure that teaches the puppy how to recover, orient, explore, and stay connected while the world changes around them.
Yes. Potty training, daily routines, household manners, and puppy-parent education are included as part of the foundation.
Yes. Puppy training is the earliest, quietest doorway into Field-Based Regulation Training. It builds orientation, recovery, relationship, loose-leash foundations, and body confidence before behavior patterns have been rehearsed into place.
Yes. Early loose-leash and relationship foundations are part of the work. Leash work is taught through connection, orientation, rhythm, and shared movement rather than pulling, pressure, or correction.
Puppies older than 20 weeks may still be very trainable, but they may be better matched to Field-Based Day Training or another Coaching Canine Companions pathway depending on their behavior, temperament, and current level of stress or reactivity.
Nothing has gone wrong yet. That is the whole advantage. Most of the dogs who find their way to this work arrive after years of practice at something nobody meant to teach them. Your puppy has practiced almost nothing.
North Kingstown, RI · Tue–Sat 8AM–6PM · (401) 249-4200