Evergreen School for Dogs

Home
United States
Arlington, WA
Evergreen School for Dogs

Evergreen School for Dogs Welcome to our page. We offer dog training services that specialize in problem solving, obedience training, and aggressive behavior.

We offer private lessons, boarding and training, and training classes. Hello and Welcome to our page. We offer dog training services to Seattle and surrounding areas. Evergreen School for Dogs is owned by professional dog trainers Tommy Grammer and Corday Rice. We specialize in training for the companion dog. Visit our website for information on all of our dog training services we current

ly offer: www.evergreenschoolfordogs.com. Or drop us an email at [email protected]. We look forward to working with you and your dog!

05/08/2025

Meet Midas!
Midas is an 8 month old golden/bernedoodle here for 10 days of training. He was a last minute addition to my calendar and I’m so happy to have him here!

Midas’ main area of focus is manners, and in order to improve them I am practicing a lot of place stays and structured leash walking. I also taught him down on a verbal cue alone and am practicing and rewarding downs on the fly inside and outside throughout the day, so that a down can be his default rather than jumping up, which was his mode of gaining attention previously.

If you have a last minute trip where you need to board your dog, why not get some training in as well? I don’t always have space as slots are very limited, but if I do and your dog is a good fit I’d love to keep and work with them!

05/07/2025

Join us for a group class this Saturday May 10th at 3pm! This class is held in North Arlington and is appropriate for most levels. The focus will be on practicing obedience skills and neutrality around other dogs and people. If you are excited to bring your dog to farmers markets, picnics by the river or other gatherings this summer but aren’t sure how they will handle it, this is a great place to start!
For more information and to sign up follow the link below.

https://www.evergreenschoolfordogs.com/training-classes-workshops

05/05/2025

Thanks to everyone who attended our group class yesterday! We practiced sit and down stays, pass bys, approaches and halts, and walking in a group on a loose leash. There was a lot of ground covered in an hour, partly because everyone was doing so well! Make sure that you are on our email list so that you are aware of upcoming classes, and if you’ve never trained with us before please reach out for more information and to see if a group class will be right for you and your dog.

https://www.evergreenschoolfordogs.com/mailing-list

https://www.evergreenschoolfordogs.com/contact

04/30/2025

Check out Bubba and Breezy after two weeks of training! These two sweeties have made so much progress since they first arrived. Neither knew how to walk on leash without darting, pulling and balking, and definitely had no capacity for a photo ready sit stay! I began working them separately the first week and have gradually moved on to full walks downtown and on the trail, and even browsing at the Co Op😊 Their individual name recognition and recall has also improved by leagues.

Unfortunately housebreaking looks likes it will be an ongoing project. They both seem to understand the concept of holding it in order to eliminate outside, and they often do even overnight, and yet will also eliminate in their kennels even when only there for very short amounts of time. A lot of this probably stems from the poor conditions in which they were whelped and raised. Most of their littermates died and their owners reported to me an unclean environment at their breeder’s when they went to pick them up.

This is so much easier to say than do, when your heart is telling you to “rescue” dogs from backyard breeders like this, but please don’t buy dogs from people that keep them in filth! There are other ways to help the dogs without inadvertently continuing a cycle of poor practices. That being said, I’m glad that Bubba and Breezy found a way out and that their owners are so dedicated to helping them!

04/29/2025

Meet Louie!
Week one and he has already found his station here🥰 Louie is a three year old Anatolian/Pyrenees mix here for a three week board and train program. His main area of focus is reactivity towards other dogs on leash and he also needs some work on his inconsistent recall. Louie is a little apprehensive when first meeting new dogs off leash, so building his confidence with some calm and friendly play matches will be part of his regimen here as well. He is a very sweet dog and pleasant to be around in general, and I’m excited to see his progress!

04/28/2025

Join us for group class this Sunday at 3! We’ll be covering a range of topics to help you navigate the summer outside with your pup. For more information and to sign up follow the link below, hope to see you there!

https://www.evergreenschoolfordogs.com/group-training-class

04/27/2025

Hunter and I visited the Arlington Skate Park this week to work on some reactivity to skateboards and scooters. Unfortunately there was nobody using it at the time but it reminded me of what a nice place to practice this park is. You have the ability to create a lot of distance if your dog needs it, or work right adjacent to the action! You can also just stroll on the perimeters of the ball fields before or after your session. Hopefully it will be busier next time I go and I can get some work done!

04/25/2025

I’m going to try to start publicly praising the good off leash behavior that I see on the trails around here as much as I criticize the bad, so here goes!

Yesterday Meadow, Adira and I were at Little Mountain when we spotted two women with a huge off leash doodle. The dog was walking in front of them but close enough so that they could easily see what he was seeing. As soon as they spotted us they easily called the dog back on the first try, leashed him and moved him over to the opposite side. I had seen this wonderful interaction and gotten off the trail to let them pass.

The pass by was drama free for all, even Adira who has come to see doodles in particular as more threatening only because most of the time they are off leash😂. I think we all enjoyed our mutual good behavior and shared pleasantries while passing. Keep it up ladies and doodles!

04/23/2025

Meet Bubba and Breezy!
These two 10 month old littermates are here for my 3 week program to address several issues. Bubba and Breezy need all of the basics as they have little to no obedience foundation, and also need work on housebreaking, fearfulness, barking, jumping and general manners. This isn’t necessarily a case where I would usually recommend a board and train, mainly because housebreaking can be so tricky to try to solve in one environment and then transfer to another, but their owners seemed a little desperate for help with travel plans in the works and at the end of their own abilities, so I’m giving it my best! Luckily they are both very sweet and friendly with humans and dogs, food motivated and eager to please.

If you’ve seen the viral video of the Aussie twins, you can get an idea of why it’s not a good idea to get littermates! They do tend to follow and copy each other more than any handler, and will need to be separated frequently for training and walking in order to develop independently and defer to a human rather than one another.

So far they’ve learned to pick out their names to be kenneled or recalled, and they are doing quite well with leash walking separately. Stay tuned for updates and poopdates😂 on Bubba and Breezy!

04/18/2025

Meet Jente!
Jente is a one and a half year old mixed breed female here for 12 days of training and fun while her owners are on vacation. She began private lessons with Tommy about a year ago and has made great strides there but could still use some polish on a few topics. Couldn’t we all?

Jente is very sweet and social with other dogs and people but displays some leash reactivity and general spookiness when out and about, especially in new environments. I think the overarching theme for Jente is impulse control. Whether it’s jumping up on people, playing too enthusiastically with dogs that may not share her play style, or pulling on leash and barking whether she’s excited or nervous, she needed some help with taking a breath and thinking before acting!

As usual I started by working on place stays. Jente is food motivated and eager to work, but needed the addition of some longer place stays, 10-15 minutes, in order to get her to stop thinking about the end of that exercise and what was coming next. Once she understood that we would be there for a little while, she began to settle down into the stay and relax.

I think that often when owners reach a certain point in training they are very excited to get away from practicing long stays and move on to the fun adventure stuff, like a great off leash recall. But often returning to those basics will improve your fun stuff quicker than anything else. Once Jente had a solid stay I had no problem calling her, even out of active play with another dog, her favorite thing!

A longer stay will also help with jumping, barking, leash pulling and even taking cues from other dogs, as incredible as that sounds. It teaches a communication system that can be applied across so many different areas of you and your dog’s life.

04/16/2025

Welcome back Skookum!
Skookum the Aussie is back for another week of training while his owners are on vacation, and has made a great play match for Ivy. Skookum has always been very social and socially aware, but as an intact adolescent male I wasn’t sure if Ivy would like him or not.

One exercise that I did before turning them loose together was to make sure that Skookum’s recall was really good, even if he was engaged in play. This way I would know that I could interrupt play if I saw Ivy getting annoyed. I matched him with two dogs that can recall reliably and made sure that he was up to the task even when distracted. Having an assortment of dogs, some with solid training already in place, is essential when finding play matches for a selective dog like Ivy.

Skookum passed all of the tests, kudos to his owners for doing such a great job maintaining and continuing his training, and is now part of Ivy’s expanding circle of friends!

While he’s helping me out with Ivy, I’ll be helping Skookum improve his leash walking, stays and general manners, especially play biting and jumping. I am also getting Skookum more comfortable with being brushed, which has always been an issue for him for reasons unknown🧐!

04/13/2025

Meet Arya!
Arya is a 9 month old Great Pyrenees here for a three week board and train program. She is very friendly and social with people and dogs but needed a lot of work on basic obedience, manners, and a few problem behaviors.

The most challenging of these was a combination of barking relentlessly at noises outside and then playing keep away when interrupted. It was very natural for her to have started pairing in her mind barking, being interrupted, and then being brought inside or kenneled. This breed loves and is designed to be outside and warn potential predators of their presence, and continuous “interference” from her owner had made her an expert at evasion.

My job was to unravel her negative associations with interruptions, and work on building a positive association with me appearing when she was barking. I first had to drill the recall with rewards throughout the day so that she wasn’t expecting to be caught each time I called her. Arya is food motivated at times but was definitely weighing the benefits of touching base with me with the costs of potentially being brought inside.

I find it helpful to place a chair in the center of the yard, away from any entrances to the kennel or house, when I’m working with this type of problem. Once the dog sees that I will stay seated, treat them if they come to me and leave them alone if they don’t, then at least I have a jumping off point for a recall built on trust. Once I have that I can restart a more typical recall practice.

The work is already paying off big time a week and a half in, with Arya smiling and heading towards me most of the time when I say her name, rather than getting ready for a game of tag. Stay tuned for updates on sweet Arya!

Address

24914 27th Avenue NE
Arlington, WA
98223

Telephone

+14252440835

Website

http://evergreenschoolfordogs.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Evergreen School for Dogs posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Evergreen School for Dogs: