Our Services

We offer many different services to fit your goals, schedule, and lifestyle.

Private Lessons

  • In these 60-minute sessions, you and your trainer will work together on the specific goals you have for your dog, whether that’s learning essential skills like sit, leave it, and stay, or more advanced skills and even behavior modification. The sessions can take place in your home or at our facility in Brookland. Before your first session, we’ll identify your goals together, and then your trainer will create a tailored plan to reach them.

    • Basic Behaviors: Sit, stay, down, come, off, leave it, and many others

    • Polite Manners: Visitors, doorways, greetings, settling, and more

    • Loose Leash Walking: Walking with less pulling and more tail wagging

    • Leash Reactivity: Saying hi to other dogs calmly when out and about

    • Tricks & Enrichment: Tools and games to play with your dog and engage their brain

    • Crate Training & Separation-Related Behaviors: Strategies to help your dog feel at ease when they have the house to themselves

    • Confidence Building: Learning to feel more secure and independent in environments that are new, busy, or scary

    • Required virtual meet-and-greet with trainer

    • Single session: $150

    • Pack of 5 sessions: $675

    • See our Policy Page for additional service fees

Specialty Consultations

We’ve designed these sessions to help dog guardians in common but complex situations.

Aggression Consultation

Hybrid Aggression Consultation

  • Realizing that your dog displays aggressive behaviors can be heartbreaking. But with the right force-free, fear-free tools and strategies at your fingertips, a happy, healthy life together is absolutely possible!

    Joseph Ryan, our aggression specialist, will assess your dog via a four-part consultation: an initial digital intake form, a 30-minute virtual meet and greet to learn a bit more about you and your dog, then an hour virtual meeting to discuss the behaviors in question with video breakdowns, learn about enrichment, decompression, management, and other techniques for immediate relief, and then an hour in-person consultation at our facility in Brookland or in-home to introduce hands-on exercises and protocols for emotional and behavior modification.

    You’ll then receive a comprehensive report and training plan.

    • Aggression Consultation: $350

    • Aggression Package (2-hour consultation and 3 1-hour follow up sessions): $700

New Puppy Consultation

  • Little pups are so much fun — and so much work! We want to make sure you’re both set up for a lifetime of success, whether you have your puppy now or are planning to adopt one soon.

    If your puppy is already at home, we offer a 2-hour, in-home consultation with Nikita Poe, our puppy specialist. If you’re getting ready to adopt soon, Nikita will meet with you for a virtual consultation before your new dog comes home.

    • Required virtual meet-and-greet with trainer: $40

    • First consultation: $300 (2 hours)

    • Follow-up session: $150 (1 hour)

    • Follow-up session package: $675 (5 sessions)

Weekend Warrior Workshops

Learning is more fun with friends! Our Weekend Warrior Workshops give you and your pup a great opportunity to work with a trainer and a few other students at the National Arboretum.

Basic Manners and Life Skills

Basic Manners and Life Skills

  • BMLS classes cover a variety of topics including clicker training foundations, basic behaviors like Sit, Impulse Control, and Loose Leash Walking. Thanks to the modular scheduling, you can focus on the subjects you need, and can retake workshops as many times as you'd like!

  • Where is it?

    All BMLS workshops are held at the National Arboretum, except for BMLS 101: Clicker Training Concepts and Foundational Skills, which is a virtual class (A Google Meets link will be emailed in the class confirmation).

    How much is it?

    Each BMLS, AMCS, AKC CGC workshop is $50 except for BMLS 101: Clicker Training Concepts and Foundational Skills which is $25.

Advanced Manners and City Skills

  • Our AMCS Workshops take that training foundation created in the BMLS classes, and raises the bar. We focus on more advanced techniques like building a reliable recall, relaxing and settling without shutting down, and meeting in real world environments to practice our behaviors.

  • Where is it?

    All AMCS workshops are held at the National Arboretum.

    How much is it?

    Each BMLS, AMCS, AKC CGC workshop is $50 except for BMLS 101: Clicker Training Concepts and Foundational Skills which is $25.

AKC Canine Good Citizen Prep and Test

AKC CGC Prep and Evaluation

  • Our American Kennel Club (AKC) Canine Good Citizen (CGC) Weekend Warrior Workshops cover everything you need to successfully pass the CGC test. In the AKC CGC Evaluation workshop, your dog will get to take the test and show off what they’ve learned.

    The AKC CGC test requires a score of 100% to pass, but if you miss one item, you can retest right there and then.

  • Where is it?

    Both AKC CGC focused workshops are held at the National Arboretum

    Both the AKC CGC Preparation and AKC CGC Evaluation workshops are $50.

    Please note that you will not take the evaluation during the Preparation workshop.

Training Walks

  • Walking on a leash isn’t as easy as it looks! Training walks help with any behavioral issues your dog might experience out on walks — making everyone’s life a little easier. They’re also a smart choice if you want to hire a traditional dog walking service in the future, but know your dog isn’t ready for that yet.

    On a training walk, we’ll address on-leash reactive behaviors, loose-leash walking, and basic manners. We’ll maintain and reinforce the behaviors you want to see, like stopping and sitting at crosswalks, and we’ll reinforce cues like “leave it” to keep your dog engaged and well-mannered.

    You can schedule a training walk as a standalone service or use them to supplement what you’re already learning and working on in private or group training sessions.

    Training walks are led by a training apprentice who’s in the process of becoming a certified force-free dog trainer. Apprentices are qualified to execute training techniques and protocols so there’s a seamless transition between your private training sessions and real-world walks.

    If you're working with a private trainer not affiliated with Force Free DC, we’ll aim to coordinate with that trainer and keep their existing training plan consistent — as long as it aligns with our fear-, force- and pain-free philosophy.

    If you’re new to our training walks, you’ll first meet virtually with your apprentice trainer to develop a training plan for your dog and talk through any questions you have. We’ll also set up your online profile together.

    • Required virtual meet-and-greet with trainer

    • Single training walk: $85 (45 minutes)

    • Pack of 10 training walks: $755

    • Walks are scheduled between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., based on your location and availability

    • Training Walks are only available in NW and NE DC

AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluation

  • Let your dog show off their good manners (and your good guardianship skills) by passing the American Kennel Club’s Canine Good Citizen assessment with evaluator Ian Kilgore. The test takes between 20 and 30 minutes to complete and requires a 100% score to pass. Don’t worry if your pup misses an item — you can retest right there.

    • Required virtual meet-and-greet with our AKC CGC Evaluator

    • Exam: $50

Gift Cards Available!

Gift Cards Available!

Want to give someone the gift of positive dog training? Purchase a gift card!

To redeem, please email info@forcefreedc.com to have the gift card applied to your initial consultation or group classes!