For private lessons, he should have age-appropriate vaccinations or titers showing immunity. If your dog is old enough, he must have a current Rabies vaccination. For group classes, he has to be all through with his distemper/parvo combination vaccine and be at least 16 weeks old. With in-home puppies who are still in the process of receiving all their immunizations, you must have had your puppy in your possession for at least 2 weeks before I will visit your home. We can do our first lesson over the phone. (We don’t work with the pup on that lesson anyhow!)
I do require that dogs be free of fleas. If not, I will reschedule for when he (and your home) is. We all struggle to keep our dogs free of fleas, and it’s just not fair for me to pick up fleas at one person’s home and potentially bring them to another person’s home (or my own). So the dogs that I work with need to be flea-free and on one of the chemical flea-preventatives. He also needs to be free of any contagious internal parasites like giardia, coccidia, hookworms, roundwords, etc. Again, this is for the protection of all the dogs. Lastly, of course, he needs to be healthy. A dog feeling ill shouldn’t be expected to work, and he won’t be focused enough to get anything out of a training session anyhow. If you have a pup who you need to start housebreaking but is ill, we can schedule a housebreaking lesson via phone, then meet in person when he’s recovered.
