In short
Foundation Camp runs 14 nights, and every one has a job: a PD360 assessment before check-in, two or more training sessions a day, a private suite to rest in between them, and a handback lesson on pickup day that teaches your family how to keep every command going at home.
On this page
Most families booking a 14-night stay want the real day-by-day picture: where your dog sleeps and trains, what gets taught in order, and how the handback on day fourteen turns two weeks of work into a habit that holds at home. The breakdown below walks through it the same way our trainers plan it, night by night, from first assessment to pickup day.
Most families come to us after months of trying to fix the same three things themselves: the pulling on walks, the jumping at the door, the dog that stops listening the moment it matters most. Here is how the fourteen nights break down, stage by stage:
Foundation Camp is a 14-night stay where your dog lives and trains with our team, then a structured handback teaches you to keep what we built. It is a program with a start, a middle, and an end, built so the manners hold once your dog is back on your couch.
When you book Foundation Camp, here is what is included across the two weeks: a PD360 assessment and custom plan before the first night, fourteen nights of daily structured training, 3.5 hours of private family lessons built into the stay, a video demo and a transition lesson at pickup, and a follow-up school of DaySchool days and Pet Parenting classes so the new habits do not fade the first week home. The stay itself is one piece. The handback is the other, and it is the piece most board and train programs skip.
Your dog is not sitting in a kennel run waiting for a walk. Every day at camp is built around two or more structured training sessions with a professional trainer, with real rest and real play built in between. Between sessions your dog practices staying settled in a crate right on the training floor, what our team calls modeling, so calm becomes a skill your dog practices as often as sit or heel. Supervised play with our staff is earned, not automatic, so it reinforces the same calm-first expectations the training sessions are building.
Across the fourteen nights, a behavior moves through stages: Teaching, where a trainer first builds the cue, Reinforcing, where your dog practices it under more distraction, and Proofing, where it has to hold up around other dogs, new spaces, and real-world triggers. The fourth stage, Maintenance, is the one that happens after pickup, which is exactly why the DaySchool days and family lessons are built into the program instead of sold as an afterthought. This same rhythm runs on both our Scottsdale and Cave Creek training floors, so the day looks the same no matter which campus your dog trains on.
Between training blocks, your dog rests in a private suite on campus, not a warehouse-style kennel row. Foundation Camp runs at both Arizona campuses: Scottsdale at 8642 E Shea Blvd in the Pima Crossings Center at Shea and the 101, and Cave Creek at 4640 E Forest Pleasant Pl, one block north of Lone Mountain and Cave Creek Road. Both locations keep staff-to-dog ratios low on purpose, about one trainer for every ten dogs, compared to the 20 to 50 dogs a single attendant often manages at a warehouse-style daycare. Scottsdale has overnight staff on site, and Cave Creek has an owner living on the property, so the campus is never left unwatched between sessions.
Vaccination records are verified before your dog's first night, staff are pet CPR trained, and the campus runs some of the strictest cleaning protocols in the valley. As one Scottsdale family, Courtney P., put it after a stay, Partners is run like a finely tuned engine.
That is the operational standard we hold both campuses to, whether your dog trains in Scottsdale or Cave Creek. If a family wants to see the space before booking, both Scottsdale and Cave Creek offer a walkthrough of the training floors and suites, so you know exactly where your dog will sleep and train before the deposit is ever placed.
Foundation Camp builds the core obedience vocabulary every family uses: Heel, Sit, Down, Free, Stay, Come, Place, and Watch, plus loose-leash walking and polite greetings at the door. These are not tricks stacked on top of each other. They are built in an order that compounds, a working heel makes loose-leash walks possible, a reliable place command is what makes a calmer home at mealtimes and guests possible.
By the end of the fourteen nights, most dogs have also opened the first rungs of the full grade-level curriculum, Kindergarten and Elementary, which is why the DaySchool days that follow camp matter. They are scheduled time to keep climbing the same ladder your dog started at camp, so the skills keep building instead of losing ground the moment training stops.
Before day one
Every Foundation Camp plan starts with a PD360 assessment, and the cost is credited straight to camp. It is how we build a plan around your dog instead of running a one-size schedule.
You are not handed a stranger's dog back on day fourteen and told to figure it out. Every family gets daily Pupdates, a short note and photo or video showing what their dog practiced and how the session went. Once a week, you come in for a 30 to 60 minute demo, where you watch the actual training in progress and start learning the handling yourself: the leash pressure, the timing, and the release word. That happens well before pickup day arrives.
This is the part of the fourteen nights that is easy to overlook and does the most work. A dog can learn a cue from a trainer in an afternoon. Teaching the humans in the house to run that same cue with the same timing takes repetition, which is exactly what the weekly demo is for.
The transition lesson on pickup day is the most important part of Foundation Camp. Over that private lesson, and through the Pet Parenting classes that follow, our team teaches you to maintain every behavior we built: the same cues, the same corrections, the same expectations. The calm comes home and stays home instead of fading in a week. Roughly 90 percent of the real job is training the family, because the dog already knows the work by the time you pick them up.
As one Cave Creek family, Kimberly V., put it after her dog's stay, We did a session with Karli on pick up to teach us how to keep up with our dogs training at home.
That pickup-day session is the same handback lesson every Foundation Camp stay ends on.
That handback keeps going after pickup day. Your remaining private lesson hours, your DaySchool days, and your Pet Parenting classes are part of the program cost. After any camp, Pet Parenting classes stay available at a low flat rate for your dog's lifetime, so there is always an affordable place to keep practicing as your dog grows. Current pricing is on the pricing page.
Foundation Camp is built for puppies six months and up, energetic adolescents, and adopted adults who are missing the basics. Here is the honest breakdown of who fits where:
If your dog has never been boarded and gets anxious away from home, that is worth naming honestly. For most dogs, camp's structure is calming rather than stressful: a predictable routine, a trainer guiding every session, and a quiet suite to rest in tend to settle a dog faster than an unstructured kennel stay would. If your dog carries deeper separation anxiety, that shows up in the PD360 assessment first, and the plan gets built around it instead of hoping fourteen nights fixes it on its own. Read more of the 2,000+ reviews from families who have been through camp.
Your dog works two or more structured training sessions a day with a professional trainer, and rests between sessions by practicing calm in a crate on the training floor, which our team calls modeling. Supervised play is earned as a reward for that calm, and your dog sleeps overnight in a private suite. It is a full day of structure, with earned rest built into every session.
In a private suite on campus, either at our Scottsdale location on Shea Boulevard or our Cave Creek campus on Forest Pleasant Place. Scottsdale keeps overnight staff on site and Cave Creek has an owner living on the property, so dogs are supervised around the clock overnight.
Yes. You get daily Pupdates with a photo or video and a short note on what your dog practiced that day. Once a week you also come in for a 30 to 60 minute in-person demo, so you see the actual progress and start learning the handling before pickup day.
For most dogs, no. The predictable routine, a trainer guiding every session, and a quiet private suite to rest in tend to be more settling than an unstructured boarding stay. If your dog carries deeper separation anxiety, that gets flagged during the PD360 assessment before camp starts, and the plan is built around it rather than assuming the stay alone will resolve it.
Camp ends with a transition lesson at pickup, where you practice the cues, leash handling, and home routines under a trainer's eye. After that, your remaining private family lesson hours, your included DaySchool reinforcement days, and your Pet Parenting group classes carry the training into everyday life at home. Pet Parenting classes stay available at a low flat rate for your dog's lifetime after any camp, with current pricing on the pricing page, so there is always a place to keep practicing.
No. Foundation Camp is a 14-night stay for puppies six months and up, adolescents, and adult dogs who need reliable obedience and everyday manners. Behavior Camp is a longer 21-night program built to go after the root cause of reactivity, fear, or aggression, and Transform Camp is the next step up for the most serious cases. If pulling, jumping, and not listening are the main issues, Foundation Camp is the right starting point.
Ready when you are
A deposit holds your dog's spot at Foundation Camp, with the current amount on the pricing page. If you are not sure it is the right fit yet, the quiz walks you to the right program in two minutes.