This program represents the highest level of structure, intensity, and precision offered at Steven’s Bootcamp Dog Training. It is built with exceptional care and intention, shaped by Steven’s own lived experience as a handler of a Psychiatric Service Dog (PSD). His personal journey gives him a unique understanding of the temperament required in a true service dog and the real‑world challenges clients may face when integrating a PSD into daily life.

This is a comprehensive, partnership‑driven program. Success requires equal commitment from both the dog and the handler. The training is designed not only to develop a reliable service dog, but also to cultivate a confident, capable handler who can maintain and reinforce the dog’s skills long‑term.

Phase 1: Basic Obedience In-Home
Duration: 8 Weeks – 1 Hour Sessions
Location: These sessions will be conducted at the owners home or at a dog friendly location when it applies to the training being conducted.
Purpose: This phase is designed to begin a strong foundation of general obedience and socialization. Not all dogs are meant to be service dogs. It does take a temperament, calmness, and confidence that not all dogs will ever possess. This phase is used to assess temperament, stress recovery, calmness, neutrality, and reactions to changing environments. At the same time we will be training the fundamental obedience commands, Come, Sit, Place, Heel, and Down. In addition, we will also be teaching owners how to set boundaries, reward wanted behaviors and how to correct unwanted behaviors.
***As mentioned above, not all dogs are meant to be service dogs. If the trainers believe that your dog will be a proper fit for service dog training, your dog will remain in the service dog program. If the trainer believes that your dog is not a good candidate for service dog training, the owner will be notified and it will be at the owners discretion to carry on with the training program. This gives the owner the ability to find another training path without incurring extra costs. If you do not have a dog at this time but want to start training a puppy for service work we would be more than happy to help you select a puppy that has the right temprament for this type of work. In most cases, this is the preferred method. Select a good candidate and start training as a puppy before bad behaviors are learned.***

Phase 2: Advanced Obedience Bootcamp
Duration: 2 Weeks
Location: These sessions will be 9 hours sessions, typically conducted between the hours of 8 A.M. through 5 P.M.. This will be at the Bootcamp location: 6734 Bloomfield Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46259
Purpose: This is 9 hours with a professional trainer with a balanced work/rest cycle. This is a huge amount of training where your dog will be trained the more advanced obedience training required for service dogs. Dogs will be introduced and master the “3 Ds” of dog training, Distance, Distraction, and Duration. These will be applied to all of the basic obedience commands that the dog was introduced to in the first phase. In addition, the dog will be trained to do practical assignments like loading and unloading a vehicle, entering and exiting a building, and the crate command. In addition, we will also be correcting unwanted behavior and setting boundaries.
***This is an e-collar training cycle unless other arrangements have been made. The e-collar will allow us to train the dog from distances and allow us to correct unwanted behaviors in a timely manner to better communicate the behavior that we do not want repeated.***

Phase 3: Group Class
Duration: 8 Weeks
Location: Most of our clients reside in the central and southern part of Indianapolis at this time. We do occasionally shift locations for better availability of our clients. We conduct these Group Classes alternating between several locations for our clients convenience. Traditionally these locations are at public parks and in instances of severe weather, may be conducted in pet friendly public locations, such as Lowes Hardware or Tractor Supply.
Purpose: After graduation of the Bootcamp Program you will receive emails inviting you and your dog to one of our many locations to conduct training with other dogs and owners. All of these dogs will be in different training phases, some basic and some more advanced. These group classes are not competitive but are meant for better socialization with new people, new dogs, in new training environments. This is also good for the owners to socially integrate into the dog training community. For service dogs we like to see them at no less than eight of these Group Classes. If we have all done our jobs correctly regarding socialization and training, these Group Classes should be elementary but if there are social issues we can catch them at this point and focus on how to strengthen any of these behaviors before we advance into public working forums.

Phase 4: Public Access Assisted
Duration: 8 Weeks 1 hour sessions
Location: These will be held in a variety of pet friendly and pet restricted locations
Purpose: Congratulations, at this point we are going to officially label your dog as a “Service Dog In Training”. Your dog will wear a vest to communicate just that. You will select a comfortable vest for your dog that will accommodate markings on both sides of the vest that it is a Service Dog In Training. According to the A.D.A., a service dog does not have to wear a service vest. This is true. On the other hand, most psychiatric service dogs are used for some type of social anxiety and that means as little confrontation and conversation as possible when in public environments. If your dog is clearly marked as a service dog there is less questioning about if your dog should or should not be in that location.
Your dog will be introduced to a variety of different public environments and many of these will be specific to frequently visited establishments of the owner. We will assist the owner in teaching the dog good manners, proper greetings, and more importantly establishing that the dog has got a job to do when wearing the vest.

Phase 5: Task Training
Duration: 8 Weeks 1 hour sessions
Location: These locations will alternate between Bootcamp and Public venues
Purpose: To train and perfect the overall purpose of the dog. We will specify two jobs that the dog will perform to assist you with regarding your medical condition. We will be training your dog to perform these tasks consistently and with confidence. Not only are we going to train these commands but we are going to test them in different public places. This ensures us that the dog will perform these tasks regardless of its social environment.

Phase 6: Public Access Observed
Duration: 4 Weeks
Location: This is where all of the dog’s training will be brought together and performed in real time at the testing location of the Public Access Test (PAT). Here we will observe the owner and their dog in a normal public environment. All training objectives will be observed and all tasks will be performed. Any problem areas will be discussed and guidance on how to correct any problem areas will be given. These are critical training sessions because testing dates are getting closer.

Phase 7: Testing
Duration: 4 Weeks
Location:
Purpose: Steven’s Bootcamp Dog Training requires that all dogs pass the Canine Good Citizens Test (Conducted by an A.K.C. Evaluator) and pass the Public Access Test (PAT). The Canine Good Citizens Test is a relatively easy test but has mild challenges to a variety of dogs. The owner will be given the testing criteria months in advance to work on any areas that the owner thinks will be challenging. To be honest, any dog that is this far into the training should not have a problem with any of the items on this test. Every item on this test will have already been trained and observed many times. There will be one practice test and one testing day. The Public Access Test falls into this same category of having been practiced numerous times and the training has already been conducted. We will do one practice test and then one testing day.