In short
Eight grade levels carry 115 skills from Pre-School to Dogtorate in the Partners Dogs training levels curriculum. Every skill is scored inside the PD360 Pet Progress Tracking System, and a dog moves up to the next grade only when that grade's PD360 score target is met.
On this page
Every grade in this curriculum stacks on the one before it, and the fastest way to see the whole shape is the ladder itself: eight grades, the skill count each one carries, and the PD360 score that opens the door to the next level. The sections below walk through what each grade teaches and how a dog climbs from one rung to the next.
| Grade | New skills added | Cumulative skills | PD360 graduation target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-School | 14 | 14 | 184 points |
| Kindergarten | 15 | 29 | 235 points |
| Elementary | 15 | 44 | 309 points |
| Middle-School | 15 | 59 | 393 points |
| High-School | 12 | 71 | 453 points |
| College | 13 | 84 | 507 points |
| Masters | 15 | 99 | 553 points |
| Dogtorate | 16 | 115 | 620 points |
The table above lays out all eight grades in order, Pre-School through Dogtorate, taught weekly in Group Classes at our Scottsdale and Cave Creek campuses. Dogs are placed by demonstrated skill, never by age or how many sessions they have attended, and together the eight grades cover 115 or more behaviors, each one tracked individually in the PD360 Pet Progress Tracking System.
Every session runs the same 45-minute shape regardless of grade. A 20-minute interval block rotates small groups through four skill stations for focused repetition. A 15-minute group segment holds one behavior against the whole class as a live distraction. A 5-minute AMRAP drills rep volume on a single skill. A 5-minute demo closes with trainer feedback and the one thing to practice before next week. Classes are taught in groups of six dogs or fewer, and open enrollment means a family can start any week without waiting on a new session to fill.
Karen M., who brought her German Shepherd puppy to Cave Creek for group classes, put it this way:
"Partners is a top notch innovative dog training facility. I chose Partner's group classes to train my German Shepherd puppy due to their exceptional expertise, their professional cirriculum, and their results oriented canine training. Best in the valley."
Karen M., Cave Creek
Nothing in this curriculum is learned once and left alone. Every skill your dog carries sits at one of four stages: Teaching, Reinforcing, Proofing, and Maintenance. Teaching is where a behavior gets shaped and lured for the first time, usually with a treat and a quiet room. Reinforcing moves the reward schedule from constant to occasional, so the dog performs on cue instead of only when a treat is visible. Proofing tests the same behavior against distraction, distance, and new places. Maintenance keeps a mastered skill sharp through ongoing use, in class, at DaySchool or DayCamp, during boarding, and at home, because no behavior graduates out of practice.
You can see the stacking in the numbers. Kindergarten's 29 cumulative skills break down as 15 new behaviors entering Teaching, plus the 14 skills a dog already built in Pre-School moving into Reinforcing. By Elementary those original 14 have moved again, into Proofing, while Kindergarten's 15 shift into Reinforcing and Elementary contributes 15 of its own into Teaching. Every grade after that repeats the same pattern: new material starts fresh, and everything already known gets pushed one stage further toward Maintenance.
A single behavior makes this concrete. Sit enters the curriculum in Pre-School as Sit w/Lure, built with a treat held above the nose. In Kindergarten it comes back as a known review skill, built for longer duration and consistency. By Elementary and Middle-School it is showing up under well-known review, expected to hold even with real distraction working against it.
Families notice the tracking as much as the training. Natasha T., whose puppy Sadie started training at Cave Creek at five months old, described it like this:
"What I like and appreciate is the way all the trainers are sending me the report cards with Sadie's progress."
Natasha T., Cave Creek
Pre-School is where every dog's curriculum starts, run as two tracks so dogs learn alongside peers at a similar life stage: Puppy, from around five months old, and Adult, for dogs twelve months and up. New manners at this grade include Confidence, Etiquette, and Socialize, and new behaviors include Name Recognition/Watch, Sit w/Lure, Down w/Lure, and Intro to Crate, plus a first trick, Spin, and tools like the slip lead and martingale collar. Fourteen cumulative skills, and a graduation target of 184 PD360 points.
Kindergarten builds directly on that base. New behaviors here are Basic Heel w/o Pulling, Left/Right Turns, Stay, Basic Place, Free, and Recall/Come/Front, the exact commands that anchor almost everything higher up the ladder. Dogs who complete a board-and-train stay at Foundation Camp usually enter the curriculum directly at Kindergarten, since Pre-School's manners are already built by the time camp ends. Dogs who are still visibly uneasy or reactive around other dogs are typically better served starting in the Pre-School Adult track instead, where confidence work and the desensitization covered in our help for dogs afraid of other dogs spoke come before anything else. Kindergarten closes out at 29 cumulative skills and a 235-point target.
Stephanie T. saw that Foundation Camp to Kindergarten bridge firsthand with her German shepherd mix at Cave Creek:
"Have a very stubborn German shepherd mix and 3 weeks of training made a difference. The staff is professional and provide quality instruction. The follow up group classes helped me better communicate with my dog."
Stephanie T., Cave Creek
Elementary is where the commands a family actually uses every day show up. New behaviors include Reset, Auto Sit, Recall to Heel, Done/Drop It, Back-Up, Off, and Leave-It, alongside new manners around calm greetings and spatial boundaries and a new trick, Touch. Tools introduced here include the muzzle, tab, e-collar, and prong collar, matched to whichever dog and handler need them. Forty-four cumulative skills, 309-point target.
Middle-School raises the difficulty. New manners cover grooming tolerance (desensitization to bath, dryer, brush, and nails), car socialization, and general objects desensitization for bikes, wheelchairs, and skateboards. New behaviors are Out, Flip to Heel, and the first off-leash work, and new tricks are Crawl and Rollover. This is the grade where structured off-leash reliability and longer-line work begin, built on tools like the long line, bark collar, and the agility weaves, tunnel, and jump. Fifty-nine cumulative skills, 393-point target.
Placement, scored
A PD360 Assessment scores your dog against this exact ladder and hands you the grade level that matches, in writing, the same day.
High-School turns a well-mannered dog into a genuinely useful one. New behaviors are Pacing, Pivots, Bye, and Retrieve, and new manners target real life directly: Child Desensitization and Medical Socialization, where a dog learns to relax while a thermometer or a noise maker is introduced, the skill that makes vet visits and grooming appointments dramatically less stressful. New tricks, Speak, High Five, and Hug, keep sessions engaging while the harder work happens underneath. Seventy-one cumulative skills, 453-point target.
College shifts toward function and physical control. New behaviors include Distance Commands, Middle, On the Move Commands, and Send Out, alongside new manners like Retrieve Objects, Bow, Open/Close Door, and Ring Bell to Go Outside. New tricks are Play Dead and Sit Pretty, supported by tools like place and touch pads and a door tug or towel. Eighty-four cumulative skills, 507-point target.
Masters is built around combining behaviors into routines instead of performing them one at a time. New behaviors include Right Side Position, Orbit, Figure 8, Catch, and Freestyle Bridging, matched with household manners like Wipe the Floor, Put Away Toys, and Turn Off Lights. New tricks, Tell a Secret, Wave, Dance, and Kiss, round out a grade level built on precision and creativity together. Ninety-nine cumulative skills, 553-point target.
Dogtorate is the top of the ladder. New behaviors are Jump Through Hoop, Jump Through Arms, Jump Into Arms, Leg Jump, Leg Weaves, and Frisbee, alongside tricks like Cross Paws, Skateboard, Shuffle, and Limp. By this point a dog is carrying 115 cumulative skills at a 620-point graduation target, every one of them still cycling through Maintenance, because nothing in this curriculum is ever finished for good. Rally and Agility run as specialty classes alongside the curriculum, open at any grade level, and dogs who graduate the full eight-grade curriculum can add AKC Canine Good Citizen prep and testing.
Graduation in this curriculum has nothing to do with a calendar. Every skill sits at a stage, and every stage carries points on the same 755-point PD360 scale used across every Partners program, from Group Classes to Foundation Camp to Behavior Camp. A grade's score is the sum of the stage points across every skill a dog has met so far. As a behavior climbs from Teaching toward Maintenance, the score climbs with it, and once that number crosses the grade's target, the move up to the next level is obvious rather than debatable.
The table near the top of this page lists all eight targets side by side. Because the structure is modular, missing a class does not cost progress, and a grade level can be repeated as many times as a dog needs before testing up. The same PD360 score follows your dog into every other Partners program too, so a plateau spotted in Group Classes is the same data your trainer sees at DaySchool, DayCamp, or during a boarding stay.
New dogs do not start the curriculum by guesswork. Placement runs through a PD360 Assessment, a full evaluation day where a senior trainer scores your dog's existing skills and temperament and recommends the grade level that actually matches what they can already do. Most dogs walking in fresh, with no formal training history, start in Pre-School. Dogs coming off a board-and-train stay usually test straight into Kindergarten. Dogs carrying more serious behavior concerns, rather than a simple skill gap, are better matched to individualized work first, since Group Classes build manners and confidence but are not a substitute for behavior modification.
Once your dog has a starting grade, the climb is the same for everyone: show up weekly, let the Interval, Group, AMRAP, and Demo blocks do their job, and watch the PD360 score move toward the next graduation target.
The curriculum runs eight cumulative grade levels in order: Pre-School, Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle-School, High-School, College, Masters, and Dogtorate. Each grade adds new skills on top of everything from the grades before it, and the full list covers 115 or more behaviors tracked in the PD360 Pet Progress Tracking System.
A dog moves up when their PD360 score reaches that grade's graduation target, not after a set number of classes. Every skill sits at one of four stages, Teaching, Reinforcing, Proofing, or Maintenance, and each stage carries points. Once enough skills have climbed high enough, the score crosses the target and the dog tests up.
Starting grade is set by a PD360 Assessment, not by your dog's age or breed. Most dogs who complete a board-and-train stay at Foundation Camp enter directly at Kindergarten because the Pre-School manners are already built. Dogs who are still reactive around other dogs typically start in the Pre-School Adult track for focused confidence work first.
Teaching is where a new behavior is shaped and lured for the first time. Reinforcing moves the reward schedule from constant to occasional, building a dog that responds to the cue itself as the treat becomes intermittent. Proofing tests the behavior against distraction, distance, and new environments. Maintenance keeps a mastered skill sharp through ongoing use in class, at daycare, and at home, since no behavior graduates out of practice.
No. Foundation Camp's board and train stay builds the same manners and obedience taught in Pre-School, so most graduating dogs place directly into Kindergarten and start reinforcing skills like heel, stay, and place instead of learning them from scratch.
Every class runs the same 45-minute shape. A 20-minute interval block rotates dogs through four focused skill stations, a 15-minute group segment proofs one behavior against the whole class as a distraction, a 5-minute AMRAP drills rep volume on one skill, and a 5-minute demo closes with trainer feedback and the one thing to practice at home before next week.
Start the climb
Whether your dog is starting fresh or picking up after a board-and-train stay, there is a grade level in this curriculum built for exactly where they are right now.