Not sure which path fits? Take the K9 Stress Bubble Audit — or book a free Meet & Greet.
Free Meet & GreetNot daycare. Not a playdate. A structured training day where Lorrie works directly with your dog’s nervous system, leash skills, confidence, recovery, and ability to stay connected under real-life pressure.
Coaching Canine Companions offers structured dog day training in North Kingstown, Rhode Island for reactive, anxious, sensitive, overwhelmed, high-arousal, and adolescent dogs. This is not dog daycare, group play, or simple exercise. It is field-based training with Lorrie Harris focused on nervous-system regulation, leash clarity, recovery, confidence, movement, and transfer back to the handler.
This page is the best fit for families searching for a Rhode Island dog trainer who works directly with the dog during the day, then teaches the family how to continue the work at home, on walks, and in real life.
Many dogs come home from daycare exhausted — and still reactive, still frantic on leash, still unable to recover when the world becomes too much. That is because fatigue can hide dysregulation. It does not resolve it.
The Difference: Field-Based Day Training teaches the system underneath the behavior: how your dog processes pressure, returns to connection, responds to guidance, recovers after stress, and makes better choices when the environment gets interesting.
You drop your dog off for a carefully structured training day. Lorrie reads the dog in front of her, sets the day’s pressure level, and builds the work around regulation, movement, leash clarity, confidence, and your goals.
At pickup, you receive a direct handover: what your dog showed, what changed, what to practice, and how to avoid accidentally undoing the progress between sessions.
Your online academy and coaching support keep the work consistent between training days, so progress is not trapped at Lorrie’s property — it begins to show up on your walks, in your home, and in your daily rhythm.
Clear fit language helps families choose wisely — and helps you know, before you reach out, whether this is your dog.
Most families begin with a free Meet & Greet so Lorrie can help you choose the right level of structure — not the biggest package, the right package.
Best for puppies, adolescent dogs, adult dogs, and families who need stronger foundations without a full behavior rebuild.
4 training days × $280 + 2 private sessions × $180
Best for dogs whose patterns repeat, whose walks are becoming smaller, or whose family needs deeper hands-on support.
12 training days × $280 + 3 private sessions × $180
It starts with a free Meet & Greet. A deposit is needed only after your training reservation is approved.
Lorrie Harris is the founder of Coaching Canine Companions and the trainer working directly with your dog. Her work is especially suited for sensitive, anxious, reactive, intense, and easily overwhelmed dogs whose behavior does not improve through commands alone.
Her background includes professional dog training, behavior work, health coaching, and years of observing how dogs organize around human state, movement, pressure, and relationship. The result is a training process that is practical, deeply individualized, and built for real-life transfer.
How full is your dog’s bubble right now?
Before we talk about obedience, we need to understand load. Six questions, three minutes, no account.
Watch it here, or keep the link: https://youtu.be/XibYeLtaphU
For some dogs, a focused day training series is enough to open the door: better walks, better recovery, clearer communication, and a calmer home rhythm.
For others, day training reveals that the pattern is more layered. That is where the 90-Day Field-Based Regulation Training program comes in — with the Canine Resilience Assessment (CRA) at Day 0, Day 45, and Day 90, field tests, and a documented Transformation Report.
We do not guess from the outside. We look at recovery time, pattern repetition, handler transfer, environmental load, leash response, and your dog’s ability to return to connection after stress.
That is the difference between buying training sessions and entering a system.
Explore the 90-Day ProgramAbove the water is everything you can see — the behaviors that brought you here. They are real. They matter. But none of them is actually the problem. They are the symptom.
A tired dog and a regulated dog can look the same at pickup — until the world gets interesting again. Fatigue only quiets the surface. Day training here works beneath the waterline, through a skill called attunement: reading the rhythm of the breath, the position of the ears, the shift of body weight — the smallest signals most people overlook. These are your dog’s words. The question is not whether your dog is communicating. It is whether we have learned to listen.
Commands matter. Manners matter. But if your dog cannot think, recover, or stay connected when pressure rises, obedience alone will not hold.
That is where this work is different. Lorrie trains the dog in front of her — not the idea of the dog, not a one-size-fits-all protocol, and not a checklist of commands detached from emotional state.
Each training day blends relationship-centered handling, real-world field exposure, nervous-system regulation, leash clarity, and practical transfer back to you.
A dog in survival mode cannot reliably access the same brain that learns, chooses, and cooperates.
K9 Bioenergy Balancing is used as a secondary somatic support layer — not as a replacement for training. Think of it as structured decompression before the teaching begins: helping the body settle enough for leash work, social exposure, confidence-building, and handler guidance to become available.
Lorrie uses gentle, targeted touch points along the dog's body to help the autonomic nervous system shift out of sympathetic dominance (fight/flight) and into a state where learning, connection, and cooperation become neurologically available. For skeptics: think of it as a structured decompression protocol — the outcome is measurable in the dog's subsequent capacity to engage. It is always paired with evidence-based behavioural work, never used in isolation.
If you have been searching for a calmer, more honest way forward with your dog, begin here.
It doesn't come out of nowhere.
It comes from a place you were never taught to look.
The bark is not the beginning. It is the release.
Before it, there was a breath that changed… a body that tightened… a world that narrowed.
By the time you hear it — the nervous system has already decided.
What you are seeing is not unpredictability. You are seeing the final moment of a process that began quietly… three steps ago.
You don't stop the reaction. You learn to meet the moment before it becomes one.
Most people try to control the explosion. But the work lives in something far less dramatic:
Three steps. Stop.
Three steps. Stop.
You are not fixing behavior. You are changing the rhythm that behavior depends on.
And when the rhythm changes — the reaction often never needs to happen.
No.
Your dog is leaving you. Not emotionally. Biologically.
When the nervous system enters survival, the part of the brain that listens… disappears.
This is not defiance. This is disconnection.
And you cannot call a dog back from a place they no longer have access to. You must meet them where they went.
If you correct a body in survival — you confirm the danger.
You may suppress the behavior. But you strengthen the state that created it.
And that state will return. Often louder. Often faster.
The question is not: "How do I stop this?"
The question is: "What state is my dog in right now?"
Because behavior follows state. Always.
Because you are measuring the wrong moment. You are measuring the visible moment. But the shift happened earlier.
A scent you didn't detect. A sound you didn't register. A memory that returned without warning.
Your dog lives in a world of signals. You live in a world of outcomes.
This work is the bridge between the two.
You don't calm the nervous system with urgency. You slow it. You give it space to remember where it is.
Sometimes that looks like stillness. Sometimes that looks like distance. Sometimes it looks like doing almost nothing at all.
And in that "nothing" — the body begins to reorganize itself.
You may see it: A shake. A yawn. A sudden interest in the ground.
These are not random. They are the body releasing what it no longer needs.
That depends on what you are measuring.
If you are measuring obedience — you may always feel behind.
If you are measuring regulation — you will begin to see change immediately. Not in perfection. But in moments:
This is how change actually occurs. Quietly. Before anyone else can see it.
First — remove the expectation that learning is happening. Because it isn't.
Then: Create space. Reduce pressure. Say less than you want to say.
And wait. Not passively — but attentively.
You are waiting for the moment the body softens. Because that moment — is your way back in.
Absolutely. Reliable recalls. Loose-leash walking. Polite greetings. Calm behavior around distractions. Those skills matter — and they are taught here.
But we do not begin with obedience. We begin with relationship.
Because obedience is not the foundation. It is the fruit.
When trust grows, attention grows. When confidence grows, learning grows. When communication grows, cooperation grows.
The behaviors you hope for begin appearing — not because your dog was forced into compliance, but because the relationship became a place where good decisions naturally emerge.
Your dog is not broken. Your dog is responsive. To the world. To the environment. To you.
And here is the quiet truth: as your ability to see earlier deepens… your dog's need to escalate often fades.
Not because they were "fixed." But because they were finally understood.
Most people search for better techniques. Better tools. Better timing. Better control.
But the shift does not begin there. It begins in a place far less visible — and far more powerful.
The moment before the bark.
The barking starts. The leash tightens. And suddenly, everything you know disappears.
You need something you can use in that moment. The Field Handouts brings together 29 practical guides from Coaching Canine Companions—so you can notice the first shift, make the next move, and help your dog find their way back.
Written by Lorrie J. Harris, founder of Coaching Canine Companions.
29 handouts. One complete 186-page book. Read on your phone or print the pages you need.
Enter your name and email. Your guide opens in a new window—no account, no inbox search.
No. This dog day training program is not doggy daycare. Doggy daycare primarily supervises, entertains, or exercises dogs. Coaching Canine Companions provides structured field-based training focused on nervous-system regulation, leash clarity, confidence, recovery, social decision-making, and transfer back to the handler.
Dog day training is best for puppies, adolescent dogs, adult dogs, sensitive dogs, anxious dogs, reactive dogs, high-arousal dogs, and dogs who struggle with leash behavior, recovery, confidence, or staying connected when the environment becomes difficult.
Yes, obedience skills are taught, including reliable recalls, loose-leash walking, polite greetings, and calm behavior around distractions. The difference is where the work begins: not with obedience, but with relationship. Obedience is not the foundation — it is the fruit. When trust grows, attention grows. When confidence grows, learning grows. The behaviors families hope for appear not because the dog was forced into compliance, but because the relationship became a place where good decisions naturally emerge.
Coaching Canine Companions is at 19 Lawnwood Road, North Kingstown, Rhode Island, and serves families in North Kingstown, Wickford, Saunderstown, East Greenwich, Exeter, Narragansett, South Kingstown and the surrounding South County area.
A training day is $280 and a 1-hour private session is $180. Essential Harmony is $1,480: 4 training days ($1,120) and two 1-hour private sessions ($360), with 6 months of email access to Lorrie and lifetime access to the Online Academy. The Transformation is $3,900: 12 training days ($3,360) and three 1-hour private sessions ($540), with structured social and movement work, 1 year of priority email access and lifetime Online Academy access. Every family starts with a free Meet & Greet, and a deposit is needed only after the training reservation is approved.
Each training day is a 5-hour training window. You drop your dog off, Lorrie works with your dog directly, and at pickup you receive a handover: what your dog showed, what changed and what to practice at home.
The dog is dropped off for a structured training window with Lorrie Harris. Training may include regulation work, movement, leash clarity, confidence-building, field exposure, recovery practice, and carefully chosen social or environmental learning. At pickup, the handler receives a handover so the work can continue at home.
Yes. Lorrie Harris works directly with the dog during day training sessions and then transfers the relevant pattern, handling guidance, and next steps back to the family.
It can be a strong fit for many reactive, anxious, sensitive, overwhelmed, or easily overstimulated dogs, especially when the dog needs structured support before the family can reliably practice the work alone. Some deeper cases may be better suited for the 90-Day Field-Based Regulation Training program.
Field-Based Regulation Training starts with the dog’s nervous system and the handler’s field of communication before asking for behavior. The method emphasizes state, recovery, leash clarity, movement, pressure, and the moment before behavior breaks.
No. Coaching Canine Companions does not use dominance-based training as its foundation. The work is relationship-centered and nervous-system-first, focused on regulation, communication, recovery, clarity, and trust.
Day training may be the right standalone path for some dogs. For dogs with more layered reactivity, anxiety, recovery issues, or difficult transfer patterns, day training may also reveal that the deeper 90-Day Field-Based Regulation Training program is the better fit.
Training an Anxious Dog: Fear, Reactivity & Body Language
What If Reactivity Was the Key to Your Dog’s Responsiveness?
The Joy-Driven Dog — Building Behavior Through Play
Build a repeatable ritual — not a rule. Breath-link at the door, a sniff reset, pattern games. When the walk becomes a conversation instead of a battle, the slack leash follows naturally.
Read on the blog → Field Library · Lorrie HarrisHow do you train a dog to listen without losing the joy that made you love this in the first place? The answer isn't more discipline — it's more play. Here's how the nervous system makes that possible.
Read on the blog →❌ “Which package should I buy?”
✅ “What does my dog’s nervous system actually need next?”
Enrollment is intentionally limited so each dog receives careful, individualized field work. A deposit is required only after your training reservation is approved.
