Dog Training Courses

At Walkies & Waggietails we offer a wide range of positive, fun and force-free dog training classes at all levels, capabilities and sports.

These include Puppy Schools, Junior/Intermediate level courses, Walkies in the Park - for Recall and lead walking trouble shooting, Advanced Obedience and Tricks in our Progressive classes and the Kennel Club Good Citizens Dog Scheme (official regulated bronze, silver and gold awards).  We also offer Dog Agility Courses, Dog Parkour Fusion and UK Sniffer Dog courses for fun enrichment, bonding and learning together with your dog as well as Puppy Prep and Puppy Play Group.

Why Train your dog?

Good training will ensure your puppy or dog is well socialised, well-mannered and a good citizen in all real-life situations both on walks and around the home.  We believe that all training should be positive and fun with a focus on connection and communication to get you working together as a team.  All our classes are officially regulated with Kennel Club listed status to gold standard and are complimented by our science based approach to dog behaviour and training.  We aim to help you better understand your dog’s behaviour,  the basic principles of psychology and how dogs learn, read body language and communicate effectively with your dog so that you can encourage their good behaviour throughout life.

A variety of dog training methods

Each dog is wonderfully unique and motivated by different rewards, games and praise.  To ensure every breed is encouraged to learn, we use the full range of positive reinforcement training methods available.  This includes eight different training techniques including lure and reward, games, clicker training, capturing, stimulating, free shaping, targeting, Premack principle and three hundred peck to name a few. 

Kennel Club Good Citizen Dog Scheme

Walkies & Waggietails is part of the Kennel Club Good Citizen Dog Scheme, which is an official regulated and recognised qualification for your dog as a ‘good citizen’.  Bronze, Silver and Gold awards are part of the Progressive/Advanced level training clubs held on Monday and Tuesday’s evenings.

Dog Training Class Location

We have both indoor and outdoor training venues for our courses. The locations are clearly marked under each course date and is easily accessible from Kew, Richmond, Twickenham, Isleworth, St Margaret’s, Mortlake, Sheen, Barnes, Chiswick, Brentford and Hammersmith.

Kew Pavillion , North Sheen Rec, Darrell Road, Richmond, TW9 4LB
We hold our indoor puppy schools here for safety between vaccinations. We also hold our Junior, intermediate level courses, and advanced training classes inlcuding the Kennel Club Good Citizens at the Kew Venue. There are no parking restrictions here in the evenings when we host our classes.

Chiswick House, Private Walled Gardens and Cherry Orchard    All of our classes suited to outdoor training, such as ‘Walkies in the Park’ courses, our Dog Parkour Fusion all levels, agility and UK Sniffer dogs courses are all held in this secure outdoor venue. There is a car park for this venue available.

St John’s Hall, St John’s Road, Isleworth, TW7 6NY In the Isleworth Venue we host our puppy schools and Junior, intermediate level training courses. These classes are held on Wednesday evenings and the venue has its own car park.

Puppy Prep School

Puppy schools can help provide positive socialisation experiences and encourage good behaviour while your pup is in the key learning stages of their development.

This seven-week course will focus on providing you with the knowledge and ability to teach your puppy basic life skills that will ensure they grow into the happy, well- balanced and mannered dog you have always wanted.

During the course, you and your puppy will learn the following:

  • Basic positions such as sit, lie-down, stand-up, stay and settle.

  • Basic food and toy manners encouraging cooperative behaviour and preventing gaurding, including ‘leave’ and ‘drop’.

  • Good ‘meet & greet’ manners that prevent jumping up and mouthing.

  • Good lead manners and loose lead walking.

  • Socialisation with people and playmates.

  • Guiding appropriate play with other dogs.  

  • Toilet and crate training

  • Safe handling, grooming and health inspections.

  • Learning to communicate with your dog and reading their body language.

  • Health and Nutrition

  • Learn about the ten key development stages that affect your pups learning and behaviour.

Course Details

Age requirement 8-20 weeks at the course start date (must have vaccination certificate)

Course Length 7 weeks

Price per course  £206.00

Kew Location Kew Pavilion Hall, Darrell Road, Kew, TW9 4LB or the Marquee at Chiswick House.

Isleworth Location: St Johns Hall, St Johns Road, Isleworth, TW7 6NY

Course Date

November in Kew - starts Tues 19th Nov @ 7.10pm Fully Booked

December in Isleworth - starts Wednesday 27th November @ 6.30pm (closed w/c 23rd and 20th Dec) Fully Booked

January in Kew -starts Mon 6th Jan @ 5.30pm - 1 place left

Junior/Intermediate classes

A great all-round ‘good manners’ course designed to help your dog build upon and improve their basic skills. Adapting them to real-life situations both at home and on walks.  

This course is ideal for junior/adolescent dogs and adult dogs to bond and connect, while working together through important life-skills to help you manage your day to day activities. All dogs are welcome to join this class from five months of age with no upper age limit.

The junior/adolescent intermediate level course (7 weeks) includes:

  • Adapting basic skills to real-life situations for ‘good manners’ at home and on walks.

  • Improved connection, communication and response from your dog any place, any time.

  • Achieve good loose lead walking thoughout your walks both in the street and the park.

  • Impulse control around leaving food and rubbish found on the floor.

  • Improving behaviour at home such as a good settle, door manners, preventing begging or jumping up at guests.

  • Teaching and progressing retrieve and drop of toys and items stolen.

  • Whistle training for recall with high distractions.

  • Developing their skill-set to intermediate level training.

  • Gradually reducing the dependency on treats for behaviours.

  • Understanding how dogs learn to set your dogs up for success.

    *please note this is a group class and your dog must be comfortable around other dogs.

Course Details

Age requirement Minimum 5 months with no upper age limit

Course Length 7 weeks

Price per course  £206.00 

Location Kew Pavillion Hall, Darrell Road, Kew, TW9 4LB (Paula OSullivan)

Isleworth Location: St Johns Hall, St Johns Road, Isleworth, TW7 6NY

Course Dates

November in Isleworth: Starts Wed 27th Nov @ 7.40pm - booked (closed w/c 23rd and 20th Dec)

December in Kew: Starts Tues 3rd Dec @ 7.10 pm Fully Booked (closed w/c 23rd and 20th Dec)

January: Starts Mon 6th @ 6.40pm - booking open

Walkies in the Park

These dog training courses are designed to help improve enjoyable dog walks in the park. We aim to increase responsiveness with reliable recalls, enhance your fun together in social settings and environments, minimise potential risks and enrich your bonding time with your dog in real life contexts and situations. 

This course is exclusively held at Chiswick House in our private 2 acre walled gardens and cherry Orchard. This course may not be suitable for reactive dogs as some training is done off-lead and in free play.  

All dogs are welcome to join this class from 5 months of age with no upper age limit. We advise that your dog has some basic level training before -hand. However, if your dog has no prior training, we may advise a one-to-one preperation session before the course commences.  

The ‘walkies in the park’ 5 week course includes:

  • Increased responsiveness and reliable recalls.

  • Focus and connection to you, even around the distraction of other dogs and people.

  • Whistle training for long distance, high distraction recalls.

  • Working through prey-drive to manage ‘squirrell urges’.

  • Achieving good loose lead walking and heel throughout your walks and around distractions.

  • Teaching a strong ‘leave’ to prevent picking up rubbish, stealing from picnic’s and other dogs balls.

  • Calm ‘meet and greets’ with other dogs.

  • Guiding appropriate play with other dogs.

  • Preventing Jumping up at people in the park.

  • Using scent games and Parkour on walks for the additional fun factor!

Course Details

Age requirement Minimum 5 months with no upper age limit

Course Length 5 weeks

Price per course  £154.50 

Location Chiswick House, Walled Garden and Cherry Orchard.

Course Dates

October - starts Sun 20th Oct @ 9am - Fully Booked

November - starts Wed 13th Nov @ 11.15am. Fully booked

January - Starts Sun 12th Jan @ 9am - 1 place left

January - Starts Tues 14th Jan @ 12.00 - booking open

Progressive/Advanced
Dog Club

Our Progressive dog clubs are for those dogs and owners who want to keep learning new things and progressing their repertoire of skills.   

The weekly clubs are for advanced level obedience skills with the aim of completing your Kennel Club Good Citizens Bronze, Silver and Gold tests.   The classes also include Kennel Club Rally Obedience and a variety of fun learning such as trick training and free shaping.    

The Progressive dog club classes include:

  • Kennel Club Good Citizen Awards – Bronze/Silver/Gold

  • Progression to more advanced obedience skills

  • Fun tricks

  • Advanced clicker training with free-shaping

  • Task Training (assistance and therapy dogs)

Course Dates

Weekly ongoing  class held at:

8.15pm on a Tuesday evening — Fully booked (waiting list available)

7.30pm on a Monday evening — Fully booked (waiting list available)

Places do become available after people have successfully taken their KC tests and we offer a place to those on our list.

Course Details

Members of the dog club must have completed our Junior/ Intermediate training course or achieved a Bronze level Kennel Club Good Citizens award.

Dog Agility and Sports

We also offer Dog Agility Classes at our Chiswick House Venue, along with other exciting dog sports including Dog Parkour Fusion, which is a funky fusion of human parkour and dog agility, and the UK Sniffer Dogs scent detection courses.

Dog Agility Classes

Agility requires dogs to think quickly and problem-solve, promoting mental sharpness and providing a fun and engaging way for dogs to keep fit and improve their physical fitness and dexterity.

Dog Parkour Fusion

Dog Parkour Fusion blends elements of human parkour like balancing, climbing and crawling with other dog training disciplines .

UK Sniffer Dogs

A Five-week scent detection course for domestic dogs as a fun learning and bonding experience, while providing life enrichment. Graduation opens up a ‘Super Sniffers Club’.