Steve, you asked "Has anyone done pairs together for the whole training period and how did it work." I don't train for a living but I imagine that would be quite a trick. Something I would never attempt. If I had 2 litter mates, I can see the beginnings of training having a bit of that scenario thrown in, just in everyday life in the house, but when you get down to actual serious training, separately would be the way to go in the beginning, like you did it.

My first reaction when reading your post was: Shelties? Litter mates? 6-8 months old? YIKES! What a handful. They're probably bonded more to each other than to the owners since they've never been separated. Add that to the Sheltie equation. So putting them together to proof was probably more than they were ready for after only 3 or 4 weeks of training.

Maybe there are other venues of training that work with more than one dog at a time (hunting dogs like foxhounds maybe) but teaching basics of sit, come, down, stay would still make sense done separately.

I don't like timelines for training dogs, especially puppies. I understand you do this for a living and therefore you have to have some kind of timeline, but I hope the owners are aware that training is an ongoing thing and has to be maintained. I have a feeling that when owners send their dogs out to be boarded and trained they have a misconception that when the dogs are returned to them, it's a done deal.

Sandy...You sound like a very understanding person and boy are you right. If I could spend 6 months with the dogs and train slowly like it should be done I would. You know how people are they want it done NOW and want it to last a life time.
I get dogs back all the time and people say they were great for the first 3 or 4 months then they went back to there old selves. I try to explain but it falls on deaf ears. Heck even real dog people have a hard time being consistent all the time imagine how hard it is for people that know nothing of pack structure. That's what keeps us in business though I guess. LOL

Thank you Steve

Do you ever train the owners? I would imagine you do that to some extent, showing them how to give commands (and corrections) that you've trained when they come to pick up the dog. Sounds like those dogs that revert back to not obeying after a while are the ones whose owners need to come back to you every 3 or 4 weeks for a 1/2 hour refresher (owner and dog together). Have you thought of doing something like this? I'll bet some people would be very responsive to that suggestion. Probably wouldn't take them long to see clearly that they slack off when at home, and that they tend to "forget" how to make it happen for them.

I sure do Sandy in fact that is the funniest part. Because of the high price of the board and train I offer free group class in the summer. Something else I started a couple of years ago is a training class for people. We use my dogs and a few others that are already trained. I train them like I would a assistant trainer. I have been getting more response to it than training dogs. We have a ball with a big cook out after.