Developmental training for puppies 8 weeks to 6 months. Critical-period socialization, foundational obedience, and the structure your puppy needs before behavior problems start.
By the time most owners call us, the dog is two years old, fully formed, and the family is in a mess they spent eighteen months unintentionally building. The dog isn’t broken — the foundation just never got laid.
The Puppy Program exists for the families who don’t want to be that call.
Between eight weeks and six months, a puppy’s brain is in its critical socialization window — the period where their nervous system writes the rulebook for how the rest of their life will feel. New surfaces, sounds, people, dogs, environments, and rules all get processed at a depth they will never process them at again. What you do in this window doesn’t teach the puppy obedience. It teaches them how to be a dog in your house, in your neighborhood, in your life.
Done right, you skip the rehab call we get from the other half of our clients. Done wrong, you make it. The window is non-renewable. So we built a program for it.
Structured exposure to people, dogs, environments, surfaces, and sounds during the window the puppy’s brain is built to absorb them. Not flooded — introduced.
Sit, down, place, come, leash work, name recognition — built as functional obedience from day one. Not living-room tricks. Real-world responsiveness.
Crate, potty, door manners, settling on a place command, impulse control around food and visitors. The structure that prevents anxiety, not the rules that suppress it.
The puppy goes home with foundational skills. You go home with the methodology to keep building. The whole point is what you do after the program.
What enrollment delivers, from drop-off to go-home and beyond.
On private land at our Hartsville facility.
Across people, dogs, environments, and surfaces.
On leash and off, including place command and recall.
Crate, potty, door manners, settling.
At the end of the program. We teach you the methodology, not just the cues.
In the weeks after go-home to keep the training integrating.
Showing the actual training sessions.
With welfare monitoring via the Agoge Excellence platform.
On the property — parasite and wellness testing standard.
We work with your puppy until you have the puppy you signed up for.
The Puppy Program isn’t the right answer for every family. It’s built for a specific buyer — the one who has the resources, the foresight, and the standard to invest in prevention instead of paying double for correction later.
If you see yourself in the right column, the next step is a conversation.
We work with your puppy until you have the puppy you signed up for. If we haven’t hit the standard by program end, we keep working — at no additional cost — until we do.
No clock to beat. No upgrade fees. No surprises. Every dog gets the same protocol, the same standard, and the same outcome reliability — regardless of how long it takes us to get there.
What happens between your first inquiry and your puppy’s first day.
Submit a consultation request or call us directly. We respond within one business day to schedule a time to talk.
A short phone conversation comes first — just to understand what’s going on with your puppy. If we’re a fit, we schedule an in-person consultation (typically 60 to 90 minutes) where we meet your puppy, assess the situation, and walk through which program fits.
When you’re ready, we schedule your puppy’s start date — pending availability. From the moment your puppy arrives at our facility, the work is in motion — backed by The Agoge Commitment.
Different dogs, different goals. The same Agoge Commitment behind every one.
Comprehensive in-house board-and-train for the family dog.
You want a reliably trained family dog who integrates fully into your household — and you want it done once, done right.
24/7 facility care · Custom curriculum · Welfare rigor · Weekly video updates · Go-home lesson · Follow-up lessons · The Agoge Commitment
An initial in-facility board-and-train, followed by four monthly week-long cohort camps. Progression that compounds over four months.
You want everything the Foundation Program delivers, plus four monthly camps that build progressive depth over time — and you want training as an ongoing relationship, not a single drop-off.
Initial board-and-train at facility · Four monthly week-long cohort camps · Progressive depth & milestones · Lifestyle integration · Lifetime methodology · The Agoge Commitment
A 12-month concierge membership. Training, monthly in-home follow-ups, and premium logistics that extend well beyond a single program.
You want a 12-month partnership with Agoge — not just a training program. In-home follow-up lessons, concierge logistics, front-of-line access, and a premium boarding relationship for whenever life calls you away.
12-month membership · Extended initial board-and-train · 4 monthly cohort camps · Monthly in-home follow-up lessons · Front-of-line scheduling · Drop-off & pickup throughout · 6 annual concierge boarding transfers · 30% off all boarding stays · Refresher training during boarding · Second family dog at 66% off · The Agoge Commitment
Developmental training during your puppy’s critical socialization window.
Your puppy is 8 weeks to 6 months old and you’d rather prevent problems now than correct them later.
Early socialization protocols · Foundational obedience · Critical-period work · Methodology that grows with your dog · The Agoge Commitment
Lifetime maintenance and community for Agoge graduates.
Your dog has completed an Agoge program and you want ongoing reinforcement, community, and support.
Maintenance lessons · Member community access · Ongoing methodology updates · Long-term training continuity
Severe behavior modification is available as a specialized add-on to Foundation, Cohort, Elite, or Alumni Maintenance. We assess fit during your consultation and tailor the protocol to your dog’s specific situation.
Before you reach out — the answers most people want first.
The opposite. Eight weeks to six months is the window the work is built for.
What’s “too young” for a typical board-and-train — loud confinement, rough handling, indiscriminate exposure — isn’t what we’re doing. The Puppy Program is structured developmental work: short, focused sessions; calm exposure to new environments at the right thresholds; sleep, food, and structure protected on the schedule a puppy’s nervous system actually needs.
The first day your puppy walks through our door is the day we start building the dog they’ll be at three years old. That work doesn’t wait until they’re “older.”
Yes — and earlier is better. The same developmental window that makes the Puppy Program so effective is what makes behavioral work on a puppy go faster than it ever will again. A reactivity issue caught at four months is a fraction of the problem it becomes at two years. Catch it early, and what would take months to rehab in an adult dog can shift in weeks.
Behavioral work can be added to the Puppy Program — but it’s an add-on, not a default, and it gets discussed with the full team during your consultation. Some puppies just need the standard developmental program. Some need it layered with focused behavioral work. The right answer depends on the puppy, the case, and your family. That’s a conversation we have in person — not over the phone, not by a form.
The same way a private school is different from a free playgroup. There’s nothing wrong with group puppy classes — they expose your puppy to other puppies in a controlled environment. What they don’t do is build foundational obedience, structure your puppy’s house manners, coach you on the methodology, or use the critical socialization window for anything beyond canine play.
Our Puppy Program is a full developmental board-and-train. Your puppy lives on-site, the work is daily and structured, and you go home with both a trained puppy and the methodology to keep going. Different product. Different price. Different outcome.
Yes — and the research is unambiguous on this. Bonding is not a function of physical proximity at week ten. Bonding is built through the consistent satisfaction of a puppy’s needs over their lifetime — food, safety, leadership, play, comfort. You will provide all of that for the next twelve to fifteen years.
What we provide is the foundation that lets your puppy understand the world clearly enough to enjoy the bond with you for the rest of their life. Trade three weeks for fifteen years of clarity. The math works.
Honest answer? It depends on what you’re actually looking for.
If what you want is a cookie-cutter, two-or-three-thousand-dollar program that runs every puppy through the same script — this isn’t that. We do things with excellence the first time, so they never have to be done again.
If what you want is a developmental program built around your specific puppy and your family’s situation — then we’re your people. Investment depends on the specifics, which is why we walk through it together during your consultation.
Every program includes The Agoge Commitment: we work with your puppy until you have the puppy you signed up for — at no additional cost. Flat-rate. No overage fees. No surprises.
Still have questions? Let’s talk.
From the facility in Hartsville to every neighborhood we know by name.
The Facility
1075 Sleepy Hollow Ln · Hartsville, TN 37074
20 acres of private land. 24/7 on-site care. By appointment only.
