About Top Dog Training and Resort

Top Dog Training and Resort operates from 2112 Orange Grove Road in Hillsborough and describes itself as a family-owned school, training and fitness center, spa and boarding resort for dogs. Its published service pages cover Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Durham and Mebane, and it runs a door-to-door shuttle across the Triangle so dogs can be collected and returned.

Training

Training runs from basic to comprehensive obedience and includes recall work, house-training help and work on excessive barking. The business teaches both in groups and one-to-one, and its stated reason is pragmatic: "If the dog cannot learn the way we teach, we must teach in a way the dog understands." For dogs needing more, it runs an in-board program in which the dog lives at the facility for three weeks while trainers work with it daily. Private lessons are listed separately, and the site states that its training carries a lifetime guarantee.

Day School

The daytime program is presented as structured rather than open play: training games, fine-tuning manners, hunting and searching games, climbing equipment and supervised play with other dogs, monitored by trained staff, with the stated intention that the skills transfer to home life. Day school is included for boarding guests on weekdays.

The trainers

Jennie Fuller is named as owner and lead trainer and the site dates her founding and operating role to 2005. Her published credentials are Certified K9 Instructor and Professional Obedience Trainer from 2004 and Certified Canine Good Citizen Evaluator since 2005, with TR Wilderness and FEMA certifications from 2019 and LIMA certification in 2023. Her listed specializations run wider than pet obedience – behavior modification, police patrol, narcotics and explosives detection, man trailing and search and rescue – and the site records search and rescue team membership, work alongside local police departments, an annual K9 Easter egg hunt co-hosted with Hillsborough Police Department, and membership of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and the International Association of Canine Professionals. The site says she manages a team of ten to twenty-seven trainers and staff.

Also on site

Boarding is in large kennels or what the resort calls K9 cabins, with elevated cots, medication and special diets handled by staff. Full-service bathing, trimming and styling are offered through the grooming side of the business.