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The Steller Path is a private, in-home obedience program that takes your dog from the first foundations through the American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen evaluation. Your trainer and your evaluator are the same person, which means nothing about the test is a surprise on test day.
Most obedience programs end when the sessions run out. The Steller Path ends with an evaluation.
There is usually no moment in a training program where anyone outside the training relationship looks at your dog and confirms the work held. The Steller Path builds that moment in, because the final session is an evaluation administered under American Kennel Club rules.
The Canine Good Citizen test is ten items long and it is not a trick list. It asks whether a stranger can approach and touch your dog, whether your dog can walk through a small crowd on a loose leash, whether your dog can hold position and come when called, whether your dog can pass another dog and handler without reacting, and whether your dog can be left with a stranger for three minutes without falling apart. Those are the situations that actually decide whether a dog is easy to live with.
A dog who passes earns the Canine Good Citizen title with the American Kennel Club, a title recognized by insurers, landlords, therapy organizations, and every training program that comes after it.
Jordan Marsteller is an American Kennel Club Approved CGC Evaluator, which means the evaluation is administered by the person who trained your dog, inside a program built backward from the ten items rather than forward from a generic syllabus. You are not preparing for a test somebody else designed and then hoping the two line up.
American Kennel Club rules require one exception, and it is a good one. The evaluator may not act as the friendly stranger for a dog they have worked with extensively, so a second handler fills that role at three points in the program. Your dog rehearses greetings with somebody genuinely unfamiliar rather than with the trainer they already trust.
The consultation exists to sort this honestly before anyone commits.
There is no upper age limit. The Canine Good Citizen program does not impose one and neither does this program.
If the goal is a dog who knows how to live in the world, that is the Path. If there is already something your dog does that frightens you, that is Steller Behavioral Rehabilitation. Selling the wrong one produces a dog who fails an evaluation and a pet parent who blames themselves for it.
Each phase closes out a specific block of the ten test items, so progress is measurable rather than a feeling.
Management before training. House training, crate and confinement, bite inhibition for puppies, and the handling and grooming work the evaluation examines. Your dog learns that being touched by a person holding a brush is unremarkable.
CGC item 3Sit, down, holding position, recall, and loose leash walking, then moving through a small group of people without pulling or panicking. This is where most of the repetition lives.
CGC items 4 to 7Accepting a friendly stranger, sitting politely for petting, passing another dog and handler at ten feet, working through dropped crutches and slammed doors and joggers, and the supervised separation that closes the test.
CGC items 1, 2, 8, 9, 10A full run of all ten items in public under test conditions, and then, once your dog has passed that, the evaluation itself on a scheduled test day.
All ten itemsPublished in full, because a program you cannot inspect is a program you have to take on faith.
| Session | Focus | CGC items |
|---|---|---|
| One | Full history, management plan, handling and grooming, American Kennel Club enrollment | 3 |
| Two | Marker work, name response, engagement, generalizing handling to new hands | 3 |
| Three | Sit, down, and holding position with real duration | 6, 7 |
| Four | Recall under increasing distraction | 7 |
| Five | Loose leash walking, then walking through a crowd | 4, 5 |
| Six | Accepting a friendly stranger and sitting politely for petting, with a second handler | 1, 2 |
| Seven | Reaction to distraction and reaction to another dog | 8, 9 |
| Eight | Supervised separation, equipment transition, full sequence rehearsal | 10 |
| Mock run | All ten items, in public, under test conditions | All |
| Test day | The evaluation | All |
Sessions are paced to the dog rather than to the calendar. A sixteen week old puppy holding a three minute separation from a stranger is not a reasonable ask, and a program that promises it in eight weeks is promising something it cannot control. Eight sessions commonly span six to ten weeks for an adult dog and three to five months for a puppy.
Three things about test day are worth knowing before you start, not the week of.
American Kennel Club rules are explicit that an evaluator may not test a dog at the dog's own home or yard, and that a distraction dog and a crowd have to be present. Steller Dog Training batches evaluations into scheduled test days at a public location, which solves the crowd and the neutral dog at the same time and means your dog tests alongside other dogs rather than in isolation.
During the evaluation your dog wears a buckle collar, a slip collar, a martingale, or a non restrictive harness, on a leather, nylon, or biothane leash. Food, toys, head collars, prong collars, electronic collars, and retractable leashes are all prohibited.
Head collars are the one that causes trouble. A dog trained on a head collar needs weeks to transition off it rather than days, which is why that transition sits in session eight instead of being discovered the week of the test.
Supervised separation and reaction to another dog account for most of it. A program named after its destination has to answer what happens to the dogs who do not arrive, and a refund clause is not an answer, because nobody wanted a refund. They wanted the title. So the answer is structural instead.
Your evaluation is not booked until your dog has already passed the full run under test conditions. The mock run was in the program either way. Scheduling the real test behind it costs nothing and removes almost all of the risk you would otherwise be carrying.
Two bandanas, and only one of them can be bought.
Completing any full Steller Dog Training program makes your dog a Steller Graduate. That covers the six session Path, the CGC Track, and Steller Behavioral Rehabilitation alike, because finishing the work is the achievement in all three.
Graduates go home in the purple bandana.
Dogs who pass the Canine Good Citizen evaluation earn a second one. The Steller Citizen bandana is gold, and it names a title your dog now holds with the American Kennel Club.
It is the only thing in the program that cannot be purchased, only passed.
Every new client starts with a free consultation, about forty-five minutes, held online.
Best fit: a complete obedience foundation for everyday family life, without the evaluation.
Ends in the Steller Graduate bandana. No test, no title.
Start With ThisBest fit: everything in the Path, plus the American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen evaluation.
Your test is not booked until your dog has already passed the practice run.
Start With ThisThe consultation before it is free, so these are the only two numbers. Either program can be paid over three months if that helps, three payments of $432 for the six or $565 for the CGC Track, with nothing added for using it. If you finish the six and then decide you want the title, two more sessions plus the mock run and the evaluation are $495, which comes to $1,790. Deciding early is rewarded. Deciding late is not punished. The American Kennel Club charges its own fee for the title, paid by you directly, and mixed breed dogs and unregistered purebreds are enrolled with the American Kennel Club in session one so it is never the thing standing between your dog and a title. See every program and price.
If yours is not here, ask it on the free consultation.
Between six weeks and five months, depending on your dog's age and starting point. Adult dogs move faster because they can already hold duration. Puppies need the calendar as much as they need the repetitions, and pushing a puppy through a three minute separation before they are developmentally ready produces a dog who passes a test and then comes apart at home.
Almost nobody reaches the evaluation without passing, because the evaluation is not scheduled until your dog has already passed the full sequence under test conditions. If a dog does fail on the day, the first retest is free within ninety days.
Yes. Anyone who has completed a Steller Dog Training program can buy further sessions at the alumni rate: $125 for one, $235 for two, or $440 for four. The rate is lower because the intake, the history, and the written plan already exist for your dog, so you are paying for the hour rather than for the case. Alumni sessions run consecutively at roughly one per week, moving to one every two weeks where your dog's plan calls for the extra spacing, and a pack begins within thirty days of purchase. If the ninety day retest window lapses because you were working through alumni sessions, your first retest is still free.
No. It covers a refresher after a move, a new baby, a regression, or simply wanting another pair of eyes on something. It is open to every Steller Graduate.
No. Mixed breed dogs earn the same title through American Kennel Club Canine Partners, and unregistered purebreds enroll through the PAL program. Without an enrollment your dog still receives a certificate but not a recorded title, which is why enrollment is handled in session one.
Puppies can start at eight weeks, once they have had one set of vaccines given at least seven days prior and a first deworming. That standard comes from the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior and it is stricter than the American Kennel Club's.
No. The Canine Good Citizen program has no upper age limit and neither does this one. Older dogs frequently do better on the evaluation than adolescents do.
Then the Path is the wrong program, and the consultation will say so. Reactivity, fear, anxiety, and any bite history start with Steller Behavioral Rehabilitation.
Yes. Sessions are in home and in your neighborhood, because that is where the behavior happens. The evaluation is the exception and is held at a public location, because American Kennel Club rules prohibit testing a dog at its own home.
Tell Steller Dog Training what is happening at home. You will get an honest assessment and a clear recommendation, whether or not we work together.
Prefer to talk now? Call (817) 217-8542