The Pack Leader
Residency.
A residency of four to eight weeks that returns a balanced dog.
You train beside your dog every week, learning to lead, so the relationship you have always dreamed of comes home with you.
State of mind first. Obedience second.
The Pack Leader Residency is a home-style immersion at the lodge: a stay of four to eight weeks in which your dog's state of mind is brought back to balance before obedience is asked of them. And you are woven in throughout, with weekly sessions at the ranch and word from us every day.
It is our home-style version of board and train, made for dogs who need a more immersive environment in which to leave undesirable behaviors behind, and for busy owners who want an effective answer to problem behaviors but do not have the time or resources to provide that immersion at home.
The duration is not arbitrary. After more than a decade of rehabilitating dogs and coaching the people who love them, Steve Del Savio determined that the most effective stay is four to eight weeks: ample time for a dog to unlearn negative behaviors and establish new ones, and time enough for owners to absorb the information comprehensively and apply it in the real world with their own dog.
What the Pack Leader Residency resolves.
Perhaps you feel you have tried everything, and find yourself frustrated, confused and overwhelmed. Perhaps you have poured precious time and hard-earned money into training programs that yielded minimal or no results. Neither is unusual here, and neither is a problem.
We have helped thousands of owners past behaviors like these, and many of our families arrived after other trainers and veterinary behaviorists had come up short. We intend to be the last stop on your training journey, as we have been for so many. Most guests arrive with more than one of the following.
- Leash pulling
- Reactivity to dogs, people or objects
- Not listening to direction
- No off switch
- Anxiety and separation anxiety
- Fear and nervousness
- Jumping
- Trouble with guests and deliveries
- Destructive behavior
- Demanding behavior
- Begging
- General unruliness
- And much more
Learn your dog's perspective.
Ours is a training built on the dog's point of view. We focus on your dog's state of mind, not merely on obedience behaviors, which are usually achieved by most dog trainers through bribery or harsh punishment and rarely hold without an understanding of dog psychology.
Understanding how a dog thinks lets us reach their instinctual side, and learning becomes far easier. Your dog is shown how to trust and respect you as a leader, and what follows is a calm, happy, obedient and balanced dog.
A plan custom to you both.
No two dogs and no two humans are the same. Your dog's plan is drawn from their specific behavioral issues, their individual characteristics, their exercise needs and your training goals.
Energy is everything in the way a dog sees the world. You and your dog each carry a specific energy, and those energies are in a relationship with one another. Everything we do is based on your energy and your dog's energy. The laws of dog psychology apply to every case; how we apply them depends on you, your dog, the behaviors you are dealing with, the environment and the relationship.
Your dog lives where we live.
The Maddie Ranch is a home before it is anything else: the lodge where Steve lives. Your dog lives there too. Their days unfold in the house and across the eight acres, and at night they settle into private quarters of their own, in the same space, under the same roof. The residency is kept to four to six dogs at a time.
Making sure your dog is safe and secure during their stay is a top priority of the house. A full team of trained dog professionals is on site twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to ensure the highest level of safety possible.
Energy is the most important thing there is in the animal world. While your dog is in our care we are always working on building trust, respect and love to the fullest, and then showing you how to achieve the same.
The residence gives them more than five thousand square feet inside and eight acres out, where they practice how to behave in the real world, inside a home and outside one, so that their success travels home with them after the residency.
How a residency unfolds.
Reaching out
Begin with the application, then speak with our admissions team about your dog and what you need. That conversation prepares us for the Assessment, where we decide whether the Residency is the right fit.
Thirty minutes at the ranch
You bring your dog to us. Dave leads the Assessment, with Steve stepping in if Dave is unavailable. We observe you and your dog, decide whether the Residency is the right fit, and recommend the length of stay: $295, credited toward any program you book within 30 days of the assessment. If accepted, we agree the training quote before you book, then sign contracts and set a drop-off date. An application is a request for a place, and nothing is booked before we have met you and your dog.
Your welcome call with Steve
Once you have booked your Residency, you have fifteen minutes one-on-one with Steve before your dog arrives. Talk through the program, how to prepare, and the questions you want answered before the stay begins.
The Residency begins
Your dog moves into the lodge. The first days with the trainer are about building relationship, spending time easing them into the routine, and observing: energy, habits, the state of mind beneath the behavior, so the weeks that follow are built for your dog and no one else.
The weeks of the stay
Your dog lives at the lodge and practices life in a real home, indoors and out on eight acres. Photos and videos of your dog arrive every day, and every week you train with us at the ranch, so you are part of the process and understand exactly how to maintain the new and improved relationship. Your residency also includes two months inside Understand the Dog™, Steve's online community, so you can go deeper between sessions.
The Go-Home Session
The final session of your dog's stay with us that places the leash back in your hand. You leave with the skills, the knowledge, the communication and the customized plan.
The follow-up
Two weeks after the residency ends, we meet again at the ranch: to review what is working at home, refine anything that needs adjustment and answer any questions you may have.
The Lifetime Support Guarantee
For the life of your dog, we remain a phone call, text or email away, and a visit to the ranch can always be arranged.
The ranch stays yours
Residency graduates qualify to apply for Lodging and The Canine Social Club, subject to individual approval. Once you are part of the pack, you stay part of the pack.
You are part of the process.
We understand how important it is for you to be included in your dog's rehabilitation. Dogs learn by association, which is why it is critical that you are associated with the change.
So we train with you and your dog weekly, not just at the go-home. In these sessions we come to understand why your dog was behaving as they were and what changes to make moving forward; we teach you the psychology of the dog, work hands-on in real-world scenarios, and hand you every tool and technique you will need, finishing with a blueprint for success at home.
Close to home, away from it all.
Our families come from Ridgewood, Franklin Lakes and Wyckoff, from across Bergen County, and many more from New York City and the wider metropolitan area. From Ridgewood, the ranch is about 30 minutes; from the George Washington Bridge or the Lincoln Tunnel, 50 to 60 minutes outside of rush hours. The weekly sessions woven through the residency make the drive a familiar one, and for any dog, the eight acres at the end of it are the point.
We bring you and your dog 95 percent of the way there. You take home the last five, knowing exactly what to do.
Steve Del Savio, Founder
The last five percent, at home.
To ensure the highest success rate possible, we bring you and your dog 95 percent of the way through rehabilitation, and you take home the last five knowing exactly what to do. Because you have trained with us weekly and finished with the go-home session, you understand what your dog has learned, how they have progressed, and how to reinforce their new balance through consistency and structure. They, in turn, already associate you with the new way of living before they ever leave the ranch.
The last five percent begins the day you leave the Maddie Ranch: applying everything the two of you have learned in your own home, unlearning the habits of the old relationship and replacing them with the new ones. The two-week follow-up steadies the new routine, and we are here to support you throughout, and long after.
Support for the life of the dog.
The Pack Leader Residency comes with a support guarantee for the life of the dog, because we want our dogs and our families happy and successful for the whole of that life. We are available by phone, text or email whenever advice is needed, and a visit to the ranch can always be scheduled to work on anything not clearly understood.
In truth, the training works so well that our clients very rarely require support. We remain here all the same.
It is what makes the program unlike any other: your dog's state of mind brought back to balance first through dog psychology, obedience taught second, and you included along the entire process, with real-world results, time and time again.
Told by the owners.
“We were literally days away from re-homing Emmitt when we decided to try one last approach… We spoke with Steve and decided to send Emmitt to him… The great thing about his program is that you are incorporated into the training so your dog associates you with the new rules and boundaries being put into place.”
“The change in our dog has been the most incredible thing to witness. Steve didn't just teach Emmitt, he taught me and Brian how to be dog owners… We are so incredibly happy to have been able to keep our family together. If you are reading this and have a troubled dog, I beg you don't give up on them.”
Brooke & BrianEmmitt, wheaten terrier
“We cannot express how Dave and Pack Leaders have changed our lives with our dog Atlas. Before working with Dave, Atlas was extremely reactive… on constant alert, jumping, barking. Atlas did a 5 week program at the ranch and we were blown away with how well he was doing by week 2!”
“To see him playing with dogs and doing well with the other trainers he had never met gave us hope… that is exactly what Dave and the team did. We are able to have people over and walks have finally become enjoyable!”
Jessica GonzalezAtlas, German Shepherd · five-week residency
You may also be interested in…
Each of our programs is tailored to your dog's needs, and each is grounded in dog psychology.
Private Sessions
Ninety minutes, one on one, at the ranch: we read your dog and the relationship between you, work hands-on, and you leave with a plan.
Learn More
The Puppy Residency
Two to four weeks in puppyhood, while the habits of a lifetime are still being written.
Learn More
Virtual Sessions
The same counsel and the same psychology, wherever in the world you and your dog happen to be.
Learn MoreGraduation is a beginning.
When your dog comes home, the ranch does not close behind them. Graduates qualify to apply for Lodging in the home they already know, and weekdays at The Canine Social Club, with door-to-door pickup from Ridgewood. Each dog is approved individually. When you travel, your dog returns to a place that already knows them.
Your two months inside Understand the Dog™ carry the learning forward, and the Lifetime Support Guarantee means we are a phone call away for the whole of their life. Families come to us for a residency, and stay for years.
Residency is limited. Begin with an application.
Every application is read personally by Steve Del Savio, and every placement begins with a conversation. A reply within one business day.
An application opens a conversation. Nothing is booked until we have spoken.
Prefer to talk first? 201 528 3647. Whoever answers will know the ranch, the programs and the calendar.