About Acadia Canine Academy

Acadia Canine Academy works from 140 Station Road in Kingston, and it is the most explicitly priced training business in Ulster County. The owner, Jim Stile, has been training professionally since 1990 and came up through the working-dog world – Rottweilers in the early nineties, then German Shepherds in Schutzhund, now IGP, with training visits to KNPV police clubs in the Netherlands and a placing at the 2007 USA German Shepherd Dog National Championships. The site is candid that the business has moved on from that: "As the years progressed, Jim's true passion evolved into training pet dogs, realizing the joy of making happy owners and families."

What is on offer

Four things, and the site names them as programs rather than as vague capability. Private Instruction is hourly one-to-one obedience work, described as best for dogs who need to be trained without distraction. Board & Train runs in two, three and four week sessions at the facility. Private Personal Protection is twenty-four private lessons. Temperament Evaluation, and a separate Special Purposes and LEO evaluation, assess a dog before either of the last two. There is also a puppies-for-sale page and a trained-protection-dogs page, so a reader should understand this as a training business with a breeding and placement sideline attached.

What it costs

Unusually for this county, the numbers are published. Private Instruction is $180.00 per hour for general work and $240.00 per hour for protection, "as there are inherent risks of personal injury when the training involves a dog that bites." The personal protection dog training course is quoted at $4,800.00 plus New York State tax and must be paid in full at the start. Board and train takes a $600.00 deposit, and the site says a two-week curriculum is the normal length: "There is rarely a dog that we cannot train in two weeks. It is not financially advantageous for us to keep a dog longer than two weeks because each additional week beyond the two-week curriculum is incrementally $480.00 more."

Approach

The headline on the home page is "No E-Collars! Only Positive Reinforcement," and the FAQ is pointed about it – the site tells readers to ask a prospective trainer about the instinctual drives of animals and treats an answer of "We use E-collars, electric collars, and prong collars" as a bad sign. The rewards it names are praise, food and toys. That is a specific position to hold alongside a personal-protection program, and it is worth asking about directly if the method matters to you.

Who it suits

Owners who want a facility rather than a home visit, who want the price before the consultation, and who are comfortable with a trainer whose background is in working and protection dogs even when the job is family obedience. Best for: board-and-train, hourly private obedience, and protection work with a written price.