From Novice to Pro by Nate Schoemer: An Honest Review

Two report cards

From Novice to Pro

Recommended with caveats

The dog

Method & Welfare

6/10

The taught architecture is genuinely reward-first: a conditioned reward marker is loaded early, and the bulk of the course is luring, shaping, and positional reward work, with thoughtful reward-fading near the end. We hold it at 6, not higher, because it is an avowedly balanced program: a dedicated leash-pressure part and a single corrections lesson are built in, and the trainer's documented method pairs a punishment marker with a leash pop or a remote-collar stim. We do not score it as an e-collar course, but we cannot call it reward-only either.

The human

Teachability & Design

8/10

This is a strong teaching product. Skill sequencing is meticulous (food mechanics, then marker, then lure, then position, then movement, then generalization), with a dedicated food-handling breakdown, an explicit common-mistakes lesson, and a difficulty-grading lesson for proofing, from a trainer widely praised for explaining the why as he works. Held below 9 because total runtime and the depth of practice and feedback scaffolding are unverified, and the heavy competition-obedience footwork may exceed what a pet owner needs.

High welfare Low welfare Hard to use Easy to use

Bottom line

This is one of the better-taught obedience curricula we have reviewed on SitStayLearn, built on a reward-first marker foundation and priced as good value, often around $48 on sale. The teaching is the reason to buy it: careful sequencing, real attention to the handler’s mechanics, and a trainer who explains what he is doing and why.

The caveat is the method. This is an openly balanced program. The foundation is all reward, but a leash-pressure part and a corrections lesson arrive late, and the trainer’s broader published method pairs a punishment marker with a leash pop or a remote-collar stim. For a confident owner of a stable dog who wants a rigorous reward-based foundation and will simply not run the Part 7 corrections, it is a strong pick. For a fearful or reactive dog, or an owner who wants a clean force-free path, we point you elsewhere on this platform.

See From Novice to Pro →

This is our review of Nate Schoemer’s From Novice to Pro: The Ultimate Guide to Dog Training, a video course on SitStayLearn listed at $97 and frequently on sale near $48. Schoemer is a US dog trainer and former Marine, a graduate of the Tom Rose School, a co-host of Animal Planet’s Rescue Dog to Super Dog, and the author of a widely circulated dog training manual. He describes his own approach as “balanced,” a reward-led, marker-based foundation with leash and remote-collar corrections layered in for reliability. We score every course on two separate axes, one for the dog and one for you, using the same rubric every time. On teaching, this is among the strongest products we have reviewed here. On method, it is genuinely reward-first in its architecture but openly balanced in its tooling, and that is where this review turns.

Review basis

What this review is based on

Last checked: June 2026

Inputs we used

• The SitStayLearn product page and curriculum outline for format, price, sale, guarantee, audience, and the seven-part structure.
• Nate Schoemer public material (his own site, his published dog training manual, and his documented correction methodology hosted on ecollar.com) for creator context and stated philosophy.
• Publicly available reputation signals, all of them promotional or off-product, read critically.
• Our published rubric and research file on reward-based training, positive punishment and welfare, and adult learning design.

What we do not assume

• We do not claim a personal single-dog field test, and we do not treat promotional testimonials as controlled evidence. The product page shows no first-party reviews of this specific course, and we found no independent third-party review of it.
• The content of the single corrections lesson ("Enhancing Training Reliability with Corrections") and the equipment lesson is behind the paywall and not named in public copy. We do not know whether the corrections taught are leash-only, verbal, or include a remote collar, so we score the architecture we can verify and flag what we cannot.
• Total runtime, per-lesson length, and the depth of any practice or worksheet scaffolding are not stated on the page. Where course details change behind the paywall, treat this as versioned analysis to be updated when new evidence changes the score.

Who it is for, and who it is not for

What the course actually teaches

The structure is the story here, so it is worth walking through. The course runs in seven parts, and the order is deliberate: the entire foundation is reward, marker, luring, and positional work, and pressure does not appear until Part 6, with corrections held for the very end.

• Orientation and fundamentals (Part 1). Course overview, an equipment lesson, a “Food Handling Breakdown,” an “Environment Difficulty Assessment” for grading distraction, an “Avoiding Common Mistakes” troubleshooting lesson, and a lesson on weaning the dog off the visible lure. The specific tools named in the equipment lesson are not stated in the public copy.
• Food-handling mechanics (Part 2). Hand-touch, stationary, backwards-follow, and lateral-movement exercises: the fine motor mechanics of delivering food rewards cleanly. Most owner-facing courses skip this entirely.
• The marker (Part 3). A dedicated lesson, “Engagement Training: Loading the Marker,” that charges a reward marker by pairing it with reward. This is the classical conditioning step that makes the rest of the course work, and putting it before any pressure is a good sign.
• Luring and positional work (Part 4). Sit, down, stand, recall, and a deep set of competition-style positions and finishes (sit-front, center, heel, flips and arounds), all taught by lure-then-reward and shaping.
• Movement in position (Part 5). Heelwork and footwork: walking in heel and center, turns, about-turns, and circular heel work. Still reward-based, and clearly aimed at precision.
• Leash pressure (Part 6). A named “Leash Pressure Training” part that introduces guidance on the leash as a cue system. The public copy frames it as “leash cue” training, which suggests pressure-and-release as a guidance signal rather than a punishment, but the exact technique is not described.
• Generalization and corrections (Part 7). Adding verbal commands, building motivation, “Spacing Out Rewards” to fade the lure, the stay, loose-leash walking, and then a single explicit lesson, “Enhancing Training Reliability with Corrections.” The page does not say what a correction consists of.

So the spine is a reward-first marker foundation, taught from the handler’s mechanics outward, with pressure and corrections deliberately sequenced last. The product description names no tools at all: no e-collar, no prong, no clicker, no “balanced,” no “dominance,” nowhere in the prose. That silence is exactly why the equipment and corrections lessons matter, and why we are careful below.

The method read: 6 out of 10

We will start with the credit, because the architecture earns real credit. The course conditions a reward marker early, spends the overwhelming majority of its lessons on luring, shaping, and positional reward work, and handles reward-fading thoughtfully near the end rather than leaving the dog dependent on a visible treat. That is a sound model of how dogs learn, and it is the right order to teach it in. Schoemer also draws an evidence-aligned welfare line in his own published material: he routes fear and aggression cases to counterconditioning rather than punishment, and explicitly warns against using positive punishment for behavior driven by fear or aggression. A reward-first foundation plus that line is why this sits in the upper half of our method scale.

So why a 6 and not higher. Because this is, by the trainer’s own description, a balanced program, and the course is built that way. “Leash Pressure Training” is a named Part 6, and “Enhancing Training Reliability with Corrections” is a named Part 7. Schoemer’s documented correction sequence pairs a punishment marker (“no”) with a physical correction, and that correction is, in his published method, either a leash pop on a training collar or a stim on a remote collar. We do not know which of those, if either, the in-course corrections lesson actually teaches, because that lesson is paywalled and the page names no tool. So we will not score this as an e-collar course, and we will not assume the worst. But we also cannot score it as reward-only, because the program plainly normalizes positive punishment as a reliability tool for ordinary pet owners.

In our framework this is the classic balanced position: better than correction-first or dominance-framed programs, and clearly built on a reward-first spine, but it builds positive punishment in as a routine reliability tool, which we cannot fully endorse. A confident owner can take the reward-first three-quarters of this course and simply stop before the corrections lesson, and most of the value lives there. We will say that plainly rather than pretend the corrections part does not exist.

The teaching read: 8 out of 10

This is where the course is genuinely strong, and it is strong in the way our rubric cares about most. As we argue in why most online courses fail, the binding constraint is almost never the dog’s ability to learn. It is whether the course is built to change what the handler does. From Novice to Pro is built around the handler’s mechanics from the first lessons, and that focus is what earns the high score.

Look at the sequencing. The course moves through food mechanics, then a loaded marker, then luring, then positions, then movement, then generalization, in an order that respects cognitive load and builds each skill on the last. It opens with a “Food Handling Breakdown” and a “How to Properly Handle Food” lesson, targeting the clumsy reward-delivery errors that quietly sink most owners. It includes an explicit “Avoiding Common Mistakes” troubleshooting lesson and an “Environment Difficulty Assessment” that teaches proofing and transfer to harder environments, which is exactly the real-world generalization step that decides whether training survives outside the living room. The format is demonstration-heavy video from a trainer with a large free-content library who is widely praised for explaining the why as he works, which is the multimedia-learning quality we score for. The audience framing is honest and broad, from new puppy parent to seasoned companion.

What holds it at an 8 rather than a 9 is partly verifiability and partly fit. The product page does not state total runtime, per-lesson length, or whether there are downloadable practice plans or worksheets, so we cannot confirm the spaced-practice and feedback scaffolding that earn the top tier, and there is no first-party learner feedback on this specific course to corroborate the experience. There is also a fit caveat: the heavy competition-obedience footwork, center positions, flip and around finishes, about-turns, is more than a typical pet owner needs, and a beginner could feel the cognitive load of it. That is a small mark against an otherwise excellent instructional product, and it is why this lands at a strong 8.

Is it worth the price

For the right buyer, this is one of the better-value purchases on the platform. At a list price of $97, and frequently on sale near $48, with lifetime access and a certificate of completion, you are getting a large, carefully taught obedience curriculum from an experienced trainer. If you want a rigorous reward-based foundation and you are comfortable being the one who decides where the reward work stops, the teaching quality alone justifies the spend, especially at the sale price. The honest caveat is the one we keep returning to: part of what you are buying is a balanced program, and the value depends on you choosing not to use the correction layer if a clean reward-based path is what you want.

Who should choose differently

If your dog is fearful, reactive, or has shown aggression, this is not the course, and we would not want you applying a corrections layer near a trigger. If you want a verified, pressure-free curriculum, you also have honest options on the same platform, and it is worth comparing this directly against two of them. Against Michael Ellis’s Dog Training Decoded, the two are close cousins: both are exceptionally taught, both are reward-first foundations that build in low-level leash pressure, and both sit below our force-free line on method. We score Schoemer’s method a touch higher (6 to Ellis’s 5) because Schoemer’s pressure and corrections are sequenced last and his foundation is more thoroughly reward-based, while Ellis edges the teaching axis. Against Mia Skogster’s Emotional Communication, the contrast is sharper: Skogster’s course is our most welfare-aligned pick here, with no pressure tooling in its curriculum, though it is a communication course rather than a complete obedience syllabus. If avoiding pressure tools entirely is your priority, Skogster is the better start, paired with a reward-based plan for the mechanics.

The verdict

From Novice to Pro is Recommended with caveats on our scale. It is one of the best-taught obedience curricula on SitStayLearn, built on a reward-first marker foundation, with meticulous attention to the handler’s mechanics and outstanding value, often near $48. We score it Method 6 and Teaching 8. The teaching is the reason to buy it; the method score reflects that this is an openly balanced program, with a leash-pressure part and a corrections lesson built in, taught by a trainer whose documented method pairs a punishment marker with a leash pop or a remote-collar stim. For a confident owner of a stable dog who wants a rigorous reward-based foundation and will stop before the corrections, this is a strong, fairly priced pick. For a fearful or reactive dog, or an owner who wants a clean force-free path, the alternatives above are the better place to spend your money.