Dog Training Online

Practical, expert led training to help you raise a happy, well behaved dog at every stage of their life.

Dog training online

Love and a strong bond are important, but without the right guidance training can feel confusing and frustrating. From playful puppyhood to confident adulthood, Dogs Trust is here to support you every step of the way. Our expert-led training helps your dog develop essential skills while strengthening the connection you share. With our fully self-led online training courses, we’ll guide you through every major life stage so you can feel confident throughout your journey as a dog owner.

Our Courses and Toolkits

Choose form our full courses or targeted mini-courses depending on your dog's needs. Each course has been designed for every life stage - from puppyhood, through adolescence, and into adulthood. Every stage come with its own journey and challenges, but these courses are here to guide you every step of the way.

When you purchase multiple courses, you build your own Training Toolkit, a reliable place for expert advice and guidance at every stage of your dog’s training journey. As your dog grows, you can continue building your Toolkit over time.

What's inside your courses?

Our online courses are designed to help you build a great relationship with your dog while teaching them important skills and setting the stage for a lifetime of positive training. 

Why choose our courses?

  • Mobile friendly - Access our courses anytime, anywhere on your smartphone.
  • Expert support - Developed by Dogs Trust experts with real life experience.
  • Bite-sized learning - Easy to digest content with practical lessons that fit into your daily routine.
  • Learn at your own pace - flexible learning, with reminders to help you stay on track. 

How your course works:

  • Step-by-Step Content - Daily lessons, videos, and training exercises you can access on your phone or tablet.
  • Self-Paced Learning – Access new content each day after completing your daily tasks. You can take up to two days’ break without losing your progress streak, perfect for working around real life! Some people move quickly, while others take a little more time - either way, we’re here to support you.
  • Quizzes & Interactive Exercises - Reinforce your learning and track your dog’s progress.
  • 5–10 Minutes Per Day - Easy to fit into your day-to-day.

Puppy Toolkit (8-24 weeks)

Everything you need to train, bond, and build confidence with your puppy. 

Not sure where to start?

  • The Puppy Skills Course lays the groundwork by helping you build good habits around everyday challenges like toilet training, mouthing, and socialisation.
  • The New Puppy Training Course focuses on key skills like recall, loose lead walking, and attention to name, strengthening your bond through positive, practical learning.

Together, they give you the tools to raise a happy, confident puppy and a relationship built to last.

Adolescent dogs (6-24 months)

The teenage phase can be tricky, but you're not alone. Start turning chaos into calm today.

Our courses:

  • The Teenage Dog Training Course helps you to understand the adolescent life stage and teaches you how to manage day-to-day challenges, navigating tricky behaviours and build calmer routines.

Build your Adolescent toolkit:

  • Choose from our four mini-courses to create a more of a tailored fit for you.

Adult dogs: How To's (2+ years)

You can teach an adult dog new tricks! 

Training doesn't have to stop as your dog ages. Continue your training journey and keep building those skills and bond with your dog today!

Build your Adult how-to toolkit:

  • Choose from our four mini-courses to suit your individual needs.

Training your dog: What to expect at each stage

Puppy: 8-24 weeks

Puppyhood is exciting but can feel overwhelming for young dogs discovering the world for the first time. As owners, our job is to guide them, build confidence, and create strong habits, routines, and boundaries early on. This foundation makes later stages, especially adolescence, much easier.

In these early weeks, puppies learn what the world is, where they can go, and basic skills like sit, settle, and loose-lead walking. Our courses are designed to help you build these essentials and support your puppy’s growth.

 

Benefits of training a puppy:

    • Curious and eager to engage, making it easier to capture their attention. 
    • Quick learners, absorbing new information easily. 
    • Fewer bad habits, so you can establish good behaviours early. 
    • Builds confidence in new environments and situations. 
    • Strengthens the bond between puppy and human. 
    • Improves communication, helping them understand cues from the start. 
    • Helps prevent future behaviour issues through early guidance.

Common challenges:

    • Short attention spans, keep training sessions to 1-3 minutes. 
    • Mouthiness and nipping, especially when overtired or teething. 
    • Training inconsistency, skills need reinforcement throughout life. 
    • Easily distracted, especially in busy environments. 
    • Developing impulse control, so patience and calm behaviour take time. 
    • Limited bladder control, meaning accidents and frequent breaks are normal.

Adolescent dog: 6-24 months

From 6 months onward, dogs enter their teenage phase; a normal but challenging period filled with big physical and emotional changes. You may see new fears, reactivity, or moments where your dog seems to stop listening.

Routine, good habits, and stepping in when your dog feels overwhelmed are key to getting through this stage.

Our Teenage Dog Training Course gives you the tools to understand these changes, manage behaviours, and keep your bond strong throughout adolescence.

 

Benefits of training an adolescent dog:

    • Better learning capacity as their brains mature. 
    • More physical ability and energy for fun, skill-building activities. 
    • Strengthens your bond during a big developmental stage. 
    • Reinforces earlier training and prevents habits from slipping. 
    • Builds emotional resilience through structure and consistency.

Common challenges:

    • “Selective hearing” - really just distractions and curiosity taking over. 
    • Big emotions that can lead to overarousal or exaggerated reactions. 
    • Testing boundaries and ignoring cues they previously knew. 
    • High distractibility in new or stimulating environments. 
    • Energy spikes that make calm behaviour harder. 
    • Fear periods causing temporary sensitivity.

Adult dog: 2+ years

Things begin to slow down in the adult dogs life stage. Hormones start to settle, behaviours start to reduce in severity, and the training that has previously been done has helped them grow into a well rounded dog. Dogs are creatures of habit, and although things may feel easier now this is where training tends to fall to the wayside and can lead to bad habits and routines forming. 

While adult dog's don't need as much support or guidance as a puppy or adolescent dog does, an adult dog still needs to stay consistent with their training to avoid it being forgotten or completely lost.

 

Benefits of training an adult dog

    • More stable hormones, making focus and calm behaviour easier. 
    • Greater impulse control compared to puppies or teens. 
    • Stronger attention span, allowing longer and more effective training sessions. 
    • Clearer preferences and personality, making it easier to tailor training. 
    • Reliable learning ability adult, dogs can pick up new skills just as well as younger dogs.

Common challenges:

    • Established habits, good or unwanted, may take longer to adjust. 
    • Harder to undo undesirable behaviours, but change is absolutely possible with consistency. 
    • Lower motivation in some dogs, especially if they have had little training in the past. 
    • Less flexible routines, making new patterns slower to form.
    • Need for ongoing consistency to maintain and build good habits.

Training with Dogs Trust

At Dogs Trust we train dogs using reward based methods, and do not advocate the use of any training equipment which changes behaviour by causing pain or fear in dogs.

Dogs which are trained with rewards enjoy learning. They are a partner in the training sessions and often 'offer' new behaviours to see if they get a reward.

Reward based training works to change behaviour and enhances the bond between dog and owner.

 

Have a question?

Get in touch for more information about our online training courses at Training@dogstrust.ie