Paw & Hand Obedience

Paw & Hand Obedience is Your Best Choice for Obedience Training in Central PA

Our goal is to make living with your dog as easy and harmonious as possible.  Our training methods are designed to help the dog and owner communicate with each other better.  Successful communication is a two-way communication loop.  Training is not just about the dog obeying commands, although that is certainly an important goal.  We as owners also need to be able to 'read' our dogs, understand their signals to us, to help us understand if our communication attempts are effective.   Humans are verbal communicators; canines are physical/body language communicators.  

We use primarily positive reinforcement and motivation, reward-based training.  We also use lots of impulse control and calming techniques to help our dogs be in a more stable frame of mind for learning.   Our method is attention and focused based.  We want our dogs to more than just obey; we want them to be connected and engaged with us, to care that we are on the other end of their leash.  We want our dogs to enjoy training, and we want it to be fun for us, too!  When our dogs are 'engaged' with us, they get less distracted.  One of the things most of our students notice is that our obedience training creates a much deeper bond with their dog and causes problem dogs to become a pleasure.  

At Paw & Hand Obedience, we help hundreds of students and their dogs each year to reach their training goals and for some to achieve goals they hadn't even dreamed of.  "No Tight Leashes" is big priority in our training.  We offer a wide variety of training, from STAR Puppy, Basic, Advanced Basic, etc, on through all levels of competition obedience, rally obedience, Therapy, Tricks, and hopefully soon, Foundation and Just-for-Fun Agility.

We adapt our methods to individual dogs when needed.  No one method works for every dog.  Dogs we work with range from very soft or fearful through off-the-charts-energy, bold dogs, and dogs with mild reactivity issues.  (We do not handle aggression cases.)

We are passionate about obedience, we love to train, our dogs love to train, and we love to share that passion with our students.  Our goal is to help you develop a deeper connection with your dog and have a dog that is a pleasure to live and work with.  You may be surprised to find, though, that many behavioral problems will be eliminated simply by channeling your dog's physical and mental energy into obedience training.  

The trainers at Paw & Hand are all approved AKC CGC evaluators.  Lana is also an IACP-CDT (Certified Dog Trainer through the International Association of Canine Professionals).  All of the trainers work well together, and all of them continue to further their own education through workshops and lessons from top, nationally-known trainers.  

We offer small classes and private lessons in both Basic/Manners/Pet obedience (AKC STAR Puppy/Puppy K, Basic, Beyond Basic (CGC), Advanced Basic (CGCA), and Urban Dog (CGCU) as well as competition obedience training in AKC, UKC and CDSP.  Our CGC and CGCA prep classes also prepare teams to test for their therapy dog certification.  As of January 2022, 100% of our students who have earned their CGC and CGCA have passed their therapy test.  

Tricks Classes where you can earn AKC Tricks titles, are offered as frequently as the schedule allows.  Off Leash and CGCU courses can be offered when we have enough interest.  Farm Dog and Intro/Fun Agility classes are in the planning stages!  

We can keep you and your dog busy and having FUN together for a long time! 

If you are interested in a class, course, or topic tha is not on the current schedule, please email the school or fill out a registration form (without paying) to indicate your interest. 

See Training Schedules for current schedule and more information.