About Peaceful Paws Puppy and Dog Training

Peaceful Paws Puppy and Dog Training publishes a single contact location, Durham, NC 27713, and describes itself more broadly as working across North Carolina's Triangle area. The head trainer and owner is Denise Chalnick Marquez, and the business's tagline throughout the site is helping owners lead a puppy or dog "from chaos to calm."

How the training is delivered

All of it happens at the client's home rather than at a facility. The site's stated reason is that skills generalize better where the dog actually lives: "Training is at your home, in your neighborhood, and can even be in parks and dog friendly places." Every program begins with an initial two-hour consultation held in the client's home, after which the plan is built around that household.

The programs

Three published packages anchor the service. The Family Companion Package starts at $935 and covers obedience, manners, socialization, pack walking, potty training and leash skills. A Community Training and Canine Good Citizen track runs six to ten sessions per certification and starts at $980, with puppy, basic and advanced certifications listed. The longest program is service dog training, which the site groups with emotional-support and therapy dog work, runs a year and a half or more, and is priced from $12,000. Behavior modification, socialization and what the business calls perception modification are listed alongside them.

Background and credentials

The owner's own account describes a first career in special education, with a master's degree and years of cognitive-therapy teaching work with children and adults with a range of disabilities, before moving into dogs in 2014. She writes that she volunteered with two service dog training organizations, was the master trainer at 4 Paws 4 Patriots for six years working with veterans training their own service dogs, and volunteered with Mobility Service Dogs West Coast Project. The credentials she claims on the site are an AKC Canine Good Citizen evaluator designation and a certification in the Syn Alia Training System for perception modification.