About Courteous Canine

Reward-based training in Wakefield

Courteous Canine is a dog behavior, training and fitness business based at 212 Main Street in Wakefield, with additional class locations in Bristol and Portsmouth. It describes its approach as reward-based training and fitness focused on practical skills, confidence and real-life success for puppies, adult dogs, therapy dogs and service dogs.

Classes and programs

Puppy options include Puppy Kindergarten and Focused Puppy. Adult classes cover basic training, cooperative care, Great Dog C.L.A.S.S., Get Focused!, outdoor adventures, AKC Trick Dog and AKC Rally Obedience, and reactive dogs have Feisty Fido and the advanced Reactive Recovery class. Touching Tails prepares therapy dog teams, and AKC Canine Good Citizen, Community Canine, Urban Canine and Home Manners evaluations are offered. Private lessons cover behavior modification, and there are service dog, professional therapy dog and AKC Fit Dog canine fitness programs.

The trainer

Owner and operator Karen McCarthy holds a Master's degree in Applied Behavior Analysis from Simmons College and is a CPDT-KA and a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC). She switched to professional dog training in 2006 after working as a special education teacher, and is an AKC evaluator and judge and an AKC Fit Dog instructor.

What owners say

One client wrote that private lessons and classes gave her "the tools I needed to help him with overcoming his reactivity to other dogs."