The Best Dog Training In Bozeman, MT

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Bozeman Dog Training Experts

Sit Means Sit Dog Training – Bozeman offers comprehensive dog training in Bozeman, Livingston, Big Sky, Three Forks, Absarokee, Belgrade, Billings, Butte, Helena, Manhattan and surrounding Montana areas.

We know every dog is unique in their breed, personality, and temperament, so we make sure to customize each training experience to match. Our professional trainers get to know each dog’s original personality to ensure the most successful results.

Whether you have a puppy that you want to start off on the right paw or a senior dog with bad habits, we’re here to help! During your pup’s journey to a happier healthier lifestyle, you also get to choose how involved you’d like to be in their progress.

We can’t wait to meet you and your furry family member and help make both you and Fido’s lives easier!

Contact us today for your free one-on-one consultation!

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About Sit Means Sit Dog Training

Dog Training Programs

Any Dog Any Age Any Problem

Private Lessons at Sit Means Sit Bozeman

Private Lessons

If you’re interested in being involved in every step of your dog’s progress, Private Lessons may be the best option for you. During this program, you’ll be learning how to train your pup from our professional Bozeman dog trainers effectively. Start to finish you’ll be by your canine companion’s side encouraging and growing with them.

Benefits of Private Training Lessons:

  • You can take pride in knowing you helped your four-legged friend become their most obedient, confident, and happy self.
  • Since our professional dog trainers will be solely focused on your pup, they’ll be able to tailor their training experience to the personality, size, and demeanor of your dog.
  • Private lessons are tailored to your schedule and held at the professional training center.

Want to get personal with your pup’s progress? Contact us today for your free consultation!

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Puppy Training at Sit Means Sit Bozeman

Puppy Management

The first 16 weeks of your puppy’s life are the most important when it comes to training. During that time you can teach them the proper way to behave from the start, so you don’t have to correct severe problems down the road. Obedience learned at the beginning of your pup’s life will help them start positively and avoid aggressive behavior later on.

Why you should consider Puppy Management:

  • You recently got a puppy (yay!) and want to ensure they are on their way to having excellent behavioral skills
  • Already you’re starting to see troubling signs of disobedience or unsocial behavior in the first 16 weeks of your canine’s life.
  • You want to give your puppy a happy, healthy, and confident life where they can feel comfortable around other dogs and people.

Get your fur ball off on the right paw by contacting us today to set up your free consultation!

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Immersion Training at Sit Means Sit Bozeman

Immersion Board & Train

We understand your schedule can be unforgiving and finding time to train your canine companion isn’t always easy. With our Immersion Board & Train program, we’ll do all the work for you. While you’re at work or on a much-needed vacation, your dog will be learning how to be their best most obedient self!

Why our Immersion Board & Train Program might be best for you:

  • For owners who have wanted to dedicate time to bettering their dog’s lifestyle and behavior but find it to be too overwhelming.
  • You’ve tried training your four-legged friend in the past but found it to be too tricky or unsuccessful
  • You’re going on vacation soon and want to come home to a well-behaved, happy, and healthy pup.

Begin your dog’s journey to a healthier lifestyle, it all starts by contacting us today for your free evaluation.

Free Evaluation

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Advanced Classes at Sit Means Sit Bozeman

Advanced & Specialty Classes

With advanced & Specialty Training Classes you can take Fido’s skills and abilities to the next level! Once your pup has successfully made it through either our private lessons or immersion program, they’ll be qualified to participate in this exciting experience.

Why Consider Advanced & Specialty Classes?

  • Your dog will learn superior off-leash obedience skills that will allow you to be in full control no matter where you are, whether it’s your neighborhood, around town, at parks, or in your favorite dog-friendly establishment.
  • Allow your dog to learn impressive and unique tricks you can show off to your friends and family!
  • Fido will learn how to fetch you whatever you request of them, which can be helpful for hunting, service work, or just grabbing the newspaper.

Contact us today and let your canine companion show you what they’re capable of!

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Lunch and Learn at Sit Means Sit Bozeman

Lunch & Learn

Are you working at a veterinary clinic, groomer, or boarding kennel? If you love working with dogs as much as we do let us treat you to lunch, and discover the benefits of our unique training methods. Our professional Bozeman staff will teach you all the different tips and tricks we know, including bite prevention and canine behavioral issues.

We want to share our knowledge on positive, attention-reward based training that we consider to be the most successful option for both canine’s and their owners. Let us introduce you to our fun-loving obedient pups who will show you just how effective this scientifically proven method is!

Contact us today to set up your Lunch & Learn, our dogs can’t wait to meet you!

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Dog Training Seminars at Sit Means Sit Bozeman

Seminars

An obedient dog is a healthy, confident, and happy dog! We love getting to share our knowledge and experience on reward-based dog training and would be more than delighted to get to talk to your group about it.

Our expert staff will meet with your group, training club, or pet store and inform you about a wide range of training topics. Most importantly, we’ll cover our reward-based training method and why we consider positive reinforcement to be one of the most effective approaches out there. You’ll also get to learn about our remote training collars used for motivation, retrieving, bite prevention, primary & advanced obedience, and general fun dog tricks!

Get started by contacting us today, our four-legged friends can’t wait to show you what they know!

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FAQs

Get answers to some of our most commonly asked questions:

Each of our training programs is custom tailored to the specific situation. There are a number of factors that we evaluate prior to building a training package for you such as your dog’s age, temperament, previous training, as well as the desired goals of the owner. What will work for one dog and owner, won’t necessarily fit well with another. Because of these factors, we offer a free demonstration & consultation as an opportunity to meet with your family as well as your dog to gain insight into the unique circumstances that affect your dog’s training. During the demonstration we will evaluate the factors and develop a training plan for your dog and family. From the training plan we will be able to give you an accurate idea of cost to accomplish your goals. There is no cost or obligation associated with the free demonstration.

Sit Means Sit uses a variety of training methods and tools to achieve the goals of the customer and their dog.

The Sit Means Sit mission:

Revolutionizing the quality of life with happy, obedient, and confident dogs.

With this mission in-mind, we customize our training approach to meet with our customer's personality as well as what will result in the best possible training experience for both dog and owner. As you view our portfolio of dog training videos, we hope that you will pay close attention to the attitude of all the dogs trained by Sit Means Sit. We pride ourselves on being able to maintain a happy and relaxed attitude in our dogs.

Sit Means Sit specializes in a diversified approach to dog training. We use an attention-based dog training system developed by Founder and CEO, Fred Hassen. This approach utilizes a variety of training tools to enable our trainers to gain the dog’s attention even in distracting situations. One of the tools that we use often in our training program is our customized Sit Means Sit Collar (remote electronic dog training collar). The reason we choose to utilize technology in our training is obvious when you understand the advantages that technology allows us.

Firstly, Sit Means Sit firmly believes in safe dog training. The technology we employ is 100% safe for dogs and humans. The Sit Means Sit Collar uses state of the art digital technology to control the output from the collar to prevent it from harming your dog. The technology that is utilized in the construction of our collar is similar technology to “electronic muscle stimulators” and “TENS” units. You may be familiar with the use of these devices in the medical field (they are very common in the Chiropractic and Physical Therapy fields) or perhaps you’ve seen devices advertised on TV as “electronic muscle massagers”. These devices essentially use low-level, adjustable electronic stimulation to creating muscle contractions. In the medical field, they are used as tools to help alleviate pain, promote blood circulation and encourage healing.

In the dog training field, specifically Sit Means Sit, remote dog training collars are used as a tool to provide a remote controlled cue. The cue is designed to neither cause pain nor to disrupt the dog’s emotional state, but rather to function as an adjustable “tap”. The approach used by Sit Means Sit trainers is to treat the “tap” from the collar as a cue for the dog to pay attention. This is no different than tapping a person on the shoulder to gain their attention. The goal of tapping them on the shoulder is not to hurt them or cause emotional distress, but rather to let them know that you want to communicate something to them.

The “tap” delivered from the Sit Means Sit Collar is a highly adjustable sensation that can be set to levels that are often imperceptible to people. Obviously this adjustability is necessary because some dogs are sensitive, while others are quite tough. There is no way to determine what levels your dog will respond to until you begin to train them with a collar. Another reason why the collars are so adjustable is because distractions from the environment are never consistent. Relate this to training with a treat. How many times will that treat work perfectly indoors, but fails to maintain your dog’s attention when a cat is running by. Sit Means Sit has found that dogs can be taught to pay attention around extreme distractions very effectively.

During the fundamental Sit Means Sit training, the dogs and handlers are taught how to condition their dog to the collar in a constructive and positive manner. By adjusting the level of the collar appropriately for the dog and the situation, as well as linking the tap from the collar with an item of high value, we can effectively teach the dog that the “tap” from the collar is related to something of value. This approach to fundamentals allows for a smooth transition into distraction training and off leash control through attention to command.

You can relate the advantages that a Sit Means Sit Collar can provide you in dog training with the advantages that a state-of-the-art smartphone provides you. Cell phones these days are no longer just phones, but mini-computers with built-in cameras, internet access and applications. These tools enhance our communication with others, allow for a diversified means of gathering and sharing information as well it’s just flat out cool what can be done with them, provided you have the knowledge. You can still choose to use you old-fashioned wall-mount telephone in your kitchen if you like, but now you’re restricted to the the length of the cord, and it’s not exactly easy to send photos to your in-laws using that wall-mount phone. Effectively limiting what you can do while you’re talking on the phone. There’s nothing wrong with doing things that way, it’s just limiting. This same relationship can also be said of using a leash to train your dog. It’s just limiting. With a smartphone you can do it all from the convenience of wherever you want.

Building on the premise of safety, the use of a remote controlled cue allows for greater freedom of communication, and in turn more efficient training through the enhancement of near-instantaneous timing. Being able to re-direct your dog’s energy or attention while he is at a distance from you greatly enhances the reliability you can achieve in a short period of time. It's also allows for you to communicate with your dog without confrontation from yelling. Also, the uniqueness of the Sit Means Sit approach stands head and shoulders above other technology-based dog training systems because of our ability to establish a neutral communication system allowing for unprecedented problem solving abilities, and through our enhanced communication skills a truly politically correct training approach. We invite you to view our training first-hand by contacting us for a free demonstration with a local trainer.

Training with a remote dog training collar like the Sit Means Sit dog training collar is really no different than training your dog with a leash or with treats. Reinforcement in any form is a required and necessary part of your dog’s life. Even after they are trained, it will still be necessary to maintain your rules and boundaries. This is really no different than we encounter with people learning to drive a car. Obtaining your driver’s license only shows that you understand the rules of the road, and have demonstrated your ability to operate a car safely. It does not guarantee that you will stop at every stop sign, and drive the speed limit all the time. Obviously there are a lot of factors that change as you drive, and some drivers are more honest than others. The bottom line however is that there are police officers responsible for maintaining the law and enforcing the rules that we have agreed to.

When looking at dog training from this standpoint, it easy to see how reinforcement of rules will be inevitable at some point. Every dog is different though, and some dogs require more or less reinforcement than others.

The good news is that proper and thorough training will result in your dog being more reliable even without training equipment or training ‘aids’ as we call them. Training your dog to be reliable without a Sit Means Sit dog training collar on is a matter of transferring attention through conditioning. There are three broad phases of training that you will encounter as you train your dog. Sticking with the your training and reinforcing your rules consistently over a long enough period of time will get your dog as reliable as they can be. The phases of training are as follows:

Phase 1: The Teaching/Control Phase ~ 6-12+ weeks

During phase one, the goal is to achieve control over your dog, teach them the rules, boundaries and desired behaviors you want. It also the time to teach the dog to pay attention and perform these commands around distractions. This phase lasts between 6-12 weeks on average, however in certain situations it may take longer to gain the reliability needed before moving on to phase two. Once your dog is capable of performing commands quickly and reliably around a variety of distractions with minimal problem solving required, then your dog and you are ready to move on to phase two.

Phase 2: The Reinforcement Phase ~ 6-12+ weeks

During phase two, the goal is to begin phasing out your training aid (remote dog training collar). In phase one, we use the dog training collar on a regular basis to regain attention and maintain our rules. Now in phase two we begin to reduce our dependence on the dog training collar and introduce consistency via variable reinforcement. You may or may not need your dog training collar, but we want to teach the dog that you are still in control even if the perception of the dog is that you are not. This phase will last between 6 – 12 weeks on average, and will require you to stick with phase two for longer than average. It’s also not uncommon as dogs mature and age to have to revert back into phase one training again for several weeks depending on how your dog’s performance and behavior is. When your dog is capable of performing commands without the need for reinforcement for approximately 6 weeks, then your dog is very likely to be reliable without their training aid present. We are ultimately looking to have your dog learn how to filter our distractions entirely. When this is achieved, your dog is much less likely to act out in an unwanted manner because of distractions.

Phase 3: The Maintenance Phase ~ Ongoing

The third and final phase of training a dog is the maintenance phase. During this phase, you will likely be using your dog training collar or other dog training aid very little as your dog is capable of ignoring distraction. The catch however is that they are still capable of distraction (they are not robots). A smart trainer recognizes this and is ready to maintain their rules, commands and boundaries at anytime. It is not uncommon to have a dog who sense the lack of maintenance and begins to revert back in their behavior. The benefit of having done your dog training properly to begin with is that regression is easily minimized and dealt with by simply jumping back into training for a short time to remind the dog of the expectations.

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Trainers & Staff

Professional trainers. Attentive friendly staff.

Darin Shepherd Headshot

Darin ShepherdOwner

With over two decades of professional experience, Darin is a renowned certified professional dog trainer based in Bozeman, Montana. Darin’s passion for training came at a young age when he would shadow his Grandfather while he would train horses and dog’s at his Uncle’s Veterinary clinic.

Darin has trained dogs for pet owners, competitive sport trainers, search and rescue teams, police K9, the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Customs. Darin believes that no dog is “too far gone” that it cannot benefit from training. It is his mission to help solve these problems one dog at a time.

Darin is an AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator #71553

Education

  • Georgia State University
  • Sit Means Sit Dog Trainers School
  • National K9 School for Dog Trainers
  • No Limitations School for Remote Collar Training

Certifications

  • Remote Collar Specialist
  • Basic and Advanced Obedience
  • Breed Identification
  • Tracking
  • Personal Protection
  • Police K-9
  • Scent Detection
  • Utility
  • Puppy Development
  • Assistance Dog
  • Retrieval

JamieLesson Trainer

BrennaLesson Trainer

AvaKennel Trainer

LawrenKennel Trainer

Service Areas

We proudly serve the following areas in Bozeman.

Cities

  • Absarokee
  • Belgrade
  • Big Sky
  • Billings
  • Bozeman
  • Butte
  • Helena
  • Livingston
  • Manhattan
  • Three Forks

Don't See Your Location?

Sit Means Sit has 157 locations across the US and Canada.

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Dog Training Videos

Check out a few videos to see our dog trainers at work!

SMS Dog Training Overview

What Are You Waiting For?

Graduation Test

Puppy Training Day 4

5 Star Reviews

We love customers and their dogs. They love us.

Rudy B.

Absolutely amazing! The staff was amazing and extremely helpful and knowledgeable! They did an amazing job with Pearl and she’s the most behaved dog everywhere we go!! Highly recommend!

Shannon H.

We took our two pitbulls to Sit Means Sit for training. Sit Means Sit did a wonderful job training our dogs. Kileaux was always easily distracted and Nikita was a rambunctious puppy. The staff was very knowledgeable and helpful in teaching us how to work with our dogs on continued training. It is hard to…

Marie B.

I am so pleased and impressed with Sit Means Sit in general. My Aussie puppy did a three week board-and-train since my work schedule limited my ability to go to group classes. They were very understanding and did an excellent job of explaining every aspect of their training methods, their e-collar, and were very open…

Ryan G.

The Sit Means Sit program enabled me to take my two dogs Gaea and Dayzee on mountain hikes without worrying about them chasing wildlife. It’s great to hike with my dogs and not worry about spooking the wildlife, thank you!