Shelter & Rescue Program Overview

Rescuing an animal is a rewarding, enriching, and significant act of care. Transitioning an adopted dog into a new home and family is not always easy, and can feel overwhelming at times. We are here to be part of the support network during that transition. We want to set your adopters and their new dog up for success as they navigate their new life together. We provide accessible, affordable support to rescued dogs and their families as they experience the adoption transition.

Through this program, we work to:

  • Support dogs and their people in building life-long, adventure-filled friendship together.

  • Build lasting, dynamic relationships with our shelter/rescue partners.

  • Provide educational support to your shelter/rescue staff, volunteers, and fosters so you can better support the dogs in your care.

  • Encourage the societal shift of normalizing professional support during the adoption process.

  • Increase commitment to positive reinforcement training techniques and force-free training tools.

  • Make professional training more accessible through sliding scale pricing and virtual availability. Questions about virtual training? Click here!

Become a Shelter & Rescue Partner!

How we support our S&R Partners:

  • Monthly free online office hour for shelter staff, volunteers, and fosters. This hour is your opportunity to ask a certified dog trainer questions about training, welfare, behavior, and more! We record these sessions and send them to you afterwards so any staff or volunteers unable to make it can still view.

  • Sliding scale lesson pricing for your adopters! During their first six months together, adopters from our partner shelters/rescues have access to sliding scale pricing for all virtual training! Normally a value of $150 for one hour, our sliding scale starts at $50.

  • Digital or printed literature on common training needs, behavior, and welfare to be distributed to your adoptees, staff, and volunteers. We understand how hard rescues & shelters work to save lives and find homes - we create all promotional materials and send to you for easy, simple distribution as needed and at your discretion.

  • Free Access to our Positive Reinforcement Training Basics Course! This is an online tool to help your adopters, staff and volunteers implement positive reinforcement training with the dogs in their care.

  • One Year of Free Enrollment in Our Virtual Classroom Bundle! Our Virtual Classroom Subscription includes 20 courses covering a myriad of training and behavior topics. Your organization can create a student account and share the log-in information among your staff for unlimited access.

How Our S&R Partners support Us:

  • By committing to positive reinforcement training techniques and force-free training tools. We believe that any dog going out into the world will be immensely served by positive reinforcement methods. If your rescue or shelter organization doesn't currently have this commitment but would like to move in that direction, we are happy to help with education and solutions to make this happen!

  • By expanding the dogs and families we have the honor of serving. We provide a wide range of virtual services, including private training, group classes, and community support. We are passionate, experienced, knowledgable dog trainers who are eager to support your adopters during the adoption transition.

  • By giving us permission to use video and photos of the rescue dogs we work with on social media, in Youtube videos, and handouts. We share many free training resources on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and are always looking for different dogs and families to showcase.

Note: This Partnership Program is no-purchase-necessary. You can nominate your organization by filling out the form below, and if we think you are a good partner match then we will get the party started!


What our rescue partners are saying . . .

Our shelter's foster program benefited immensely from Summit's discounted private training, and I am thankful for our partnership! The dogs in our foster program are oftentimes working through varying behavior & training goals. By connecting our fosters and the dogs they help with Summit's Associate Trainers, both receive crucial training and support. Summit has shown great professionalism, care and commitment to our shelter dogs and their success both prior and after adoption!


Nominate Your Rescue Here!

Nominations should be made by rescue staff or board member with authority to commit to participation in our Partnership Program.

If you have questions about our Shelter & Rescue Program, please email Admin@SummitDogTraining.com