Basic Course 3 – Towards Adulthood

Give your dog more room to explore and learn to work together at a distance.

Your dog is growing up, and their personality and breed traits are becoming easier to see. It’s an exciting stage: your dog is ready to learn new things, even if those adolescent moments haven’t quite gone away. In Basic Course 3, you’ll try new exercises and take familiar skills to the next level. We’ll help you find the right challenge for you and your dog.

From practising close by to working at a distance

Using a long lead of at least 5 metres, we’ll introduce a new way to practise relaxed walking. In suitable places, we’ll let the lead trail on the ground so your dog has more room to move while you practise staying connected. You’ll also learn to guide your dog from a distance and help them switch sides smoothly while you’re walking.

We’ll take impulse control a step further, too. In the previous course, you helped your dog walk past food on the ground. Now they’ll have more room to make that choice for themselves. If passing other dogs is still tricky, we’ll practise different ways to make it easier on your everyday walks.

Personal guidance you can use beyond the lesson

Across six practical lessons, we’ll also work on the skills you’d like to improve with your dog. Your trainer will help you see when your dog is ready for a bigger challenge and when a small adjustment can make an exercise easier. That way, you’ll know what to practise between lessons.

We train indoors and outdoors, depending on the weather, and also use our outdoor locations in the Amsterdamse Bos and at De Poel in Amstelveen. An exercise that feels easy in a familiar place can feel quite different on a busier path. Practising in different settings helps you use the same skills on your own walks.

Understand your dog better with the DogTalk Academy

Your course includes access to the DogTalk Academy, where you’ll find all the exercises and in-depth learning modules about this stage of your dog’s development. You’ll explore dogs’ emotions and learn what training can realistically change. Sometimes it helps to practise a skill a little more. Other times, changing the situation is the best way to help your dog.

Also included is the online masterclass Fear, Reactivity and Aggression, which you can watch at your own pace. These topics can be difficult, but understanding them helps you handle everyday encounters with dogs and people. You’ll learn to recognise early signs of tension, understand what may be behind a reaction and decide when to give your dog more space or move away.

Ready to see what else you and your dog can do together? Choose your start date and join us for Basic Course 3.