The foundation the whole system is built on: obedience, behavior, board-and-train, and the business of running a Buck’s location. Tools are introduced in the first three days and used every day after, with theory, tools and handling interleaved daily.
You can offer: Board-and-train, private lessons, group classes and day training — and it is the prerequisite for all six specialties.
Buck’s own agility system — confidence before speed — plus the three major external handling systems, taught so you can continue a client who arrives on one of them. Full obstacle inventory, conditioning and injury prevention, biomechanics, and AKC, USDAA and UKI rule sets.
You can offer: Agility classes, private handling lessons and trial prep. Renewal includes running a novice course at speed.
Free-shaping mastery, thirty-plus trick foundations, behavior chains, choreography and portfolio filming, mapped onto the AKC Trick Dog ladder from Novice through Elite Performer. The most reinforcement-positive track we teach — compulsion is rarely the right answer here.
You can offer: Trick and freestyle classes and AKC title prep. Renewal is a three-minute routine performed with your own dog.
The reactivity and aggression casework most trainers turn away: bite-risk management and the six-level bite scale, threshold work, muzzle conditioning, the Out-and-redirect protocol, working alongside veterinary behaviorists, and writing an honest prognosis.
You can offer: Rehabilitation cases — the practical exam includes a graded bite-ladder board, and renewal is a high-stakes practical on real reactive dogs.
Task training across disability categories, public-access mastery to an ADI-equivalent Public Access Test, and the legal frame a service-dog trainer is held to — ADA, FHA, ACAA and DOT.
You can offer: Owner-trained service-dog programs and public-access preparation. The renewal exam is heavier on legal scenarios than any other track.
Detection and nosework end to end: odor imprinting on birch, anise, clove and cypress; container, interior, exterior, vehicle and buried searches; passive versus aggressive indication; and reading your dog. The AKC Scent Work and NACSW pathways are the titling venues, not the method.
You can offer: Nosework classes, detection foundations and trial preparation. Renewal is a blind interior search on a single hide.
Protection WORK, not sport — grounded in military and police K9 practice. Drive development, grip and bite work, the Out as a non-negotiable release, bark-and-hold, apprehension and the call-off, decoy safety, and the state-by-state liability frame. Sport venues are taught only as context a trainer should recognise.
You can offer: Handler-protection and protection dogs, including the owner vetting and deployment law that go with them.
Every specialty requires an active General L1 (CBDT) first, and each track runs three levels — entry, senior, and master.
