How does the 7-day free trial actually work?
You tap Start 7-day free trial on the pricing page. Stripe asks for your email and a card, charges $0, and shows "$89 on day 8" up front so there are no surprises. The whole Enrolled experience unlocks from minute one. If you cancel before day 8 (one tap from the member area, sends an email to us, we process it within 24 hours) your card is never charged. If you do nothing, day 8 begins your $89/year Enrolled subscription.
What's the catch? $89 sounds too cheap for "the protocol a $3,000 trainer would use."
No catch. CritterU replaces the delivery of training (the trainer's time, their drive over, their hourly rate) with software. The protocol itself is the same: positive reinforcement, gated by mastery, with named fixes when sessions go sideways. A trainer's hour is $90–$200 because of their time and certification, not because the technique costs that much to develop. We can charge $89/year because the same protocol runs against your dog's profile automatically, every block, forever.
Where you still need a real trainer: clinical aggression, severe resource guarding, working/sport-dog titles, or anything you'd ask a board-certified veterinary behaviorist about. CritterU routes those out explicitly.
What's the difference between Freshman, Enrolled, and Forever Home?
Freshman is genuinely free, forever. Pick 3 of the 12 problem areas. 25 starter lessons. Manual routine (you pick what to work on each block). Read-only video library. Basic Sound Toolkit. One dog profile. No card.
Enrolled unlocks all 12 problem areas and 75 lessons, the auto-loop that picks tonight's lesson for you, levels that drop back when sessions go sideways, plain-English mistake diagnostics, the full Sound Toolkit, the downloadable commitment report, multi-dog profiles, write access to the video library, and discounts in the vet-curated shop. $11.99/month or $89/year (save 38% by paying yearly).
Forever Home is everything in Enrolled for a single $199 payment. No renewals, ever. Future lessons included. Pays off by your second dog.
What are the badges I see on dog profiles, and how does a dog earn them?
Two completely separate things sit next to a dog's name. Don't confuse them.
The subscription chip (one slot)
This is the membership tier the owner is paying for. There are three:
- Freshman (free): no chip, the owner is on the free plan
- Enrolled (sage chip): the owner pays $11.99 monthly or $89 yearly
- Forever Home (gold chip): the owner paid $199 once for lifetime access
The achievement badge (the highest one shows on the profile)
This is what the dog has actually accomplished in training. Six badges, awarded automatically as the dog progresses. Lower badges still show in the Accomplishments section of the profile, but only the highest one shows next to the dog's name to keep the header clean.
- 🐾 Good Sit, master your first skill (any of the 75, level 5 mastery)
- 📅 Committed, train on 15 different days, it rewards showing up, not finishing
- ⭐ Show Off, submit your first complete clip set, before training + mid session + after, all of the same skill
- 🏅 Star Pupil, 10 skills mastered total
- 🦴 Pack Leader, 50 skills mastered total
- 🥇 Champion, all 75 skills mastered
- 🏆 Best in Show, all 75 skills mastered AND a complete clip set on every skill the dog has trained
One exception, for dogs no longer with us: if a dog has been marked "🌈 forever loved" on their profile (the memorial toggle in the birthday editor), the clip-set requirement for Best in Show is waived. A dog who reached 75/75 mastery before crossing the bridge earns Best in Show honorarily. They can't upload anymore, so the trophy is theirs.
🧡 Ruff Start, a badge of honor: some dogs come from abuse, neglect, or a hard situation before finding their forever home. During setup you can mark that your dog had a ruff start, and a Ruff Start badge sits beside their name to honor how far they've come. It's not earned through training and it never changes the lesson plan, it just tells the story. You can turn it on or off anytime.
Storage IDs are stable, so if you're looking at the database the names stored are ruff-start, first-lesson, good-dog, decathlete, schoolmaster, champion, best-in-show. The display names above are what owners see.
Can I cancel? How easy is it?
Yes, cancel anytime. From your
member area, scroll to the Account card and use
Delete my account for an instant, self-service wipe. No retention script, no "wait, before you go" guilt loop, no five-screen flow.
Deleting during the trial means your card is never charged. Your dog's progress data is removed with the account; if you sign up again later, you'll start fresh.
How much time per day will this actually take?
Default is one 10-minute training block per day. That's the sweet spot for most adult dogs: long enough to make progress on one lesson, short enough that your dog stays engaged. Puppies and high-energy adolescents do better with two or three shorter blocks of 5 minutes spaced out across the day. You can configure this on the Schedule tab.
Outside of structured blocks, the Sound Toolkit (recall whistle, marker word, calming track) is on-call any time. Most owners reach for it once or twice a day on walks.
What if I miss a few days?
Nothing bad happens. Mastery levels don't decay just because you took a week off; they only drop when you log a stumble. When you come back, the routine picks up where it left off. The lesson scheduled for tonight is still the next un-mastered lesson in your dog's chain.
CritterU does not send you guilt notifications for missed days, will not "break your streak," will not threaten to forget your progress. Real life happens.
What you do get is the opposite of guilt: every day a lesson gets done turns blue on your schedule, and any time you want proof of the work, you can download a color-coded commitment report (CSV or Excel) for any date range. It only ever celebrates the days you showed up. There is no red for the days you didn't. No other training app pairs "here's what to train tonight" with a downloadable record like this.
Is this for puppies, adult dogs, senior dogs, or all of them?
All of them. CritterU adapts by age bracket (puppy, young, adult, senior) and by the specific problems you pick at signup. Adult and senior owners are an under-served market; most apps are puppy-first and lose users at 6 months. We don't.
Old dogs absolutely learn new tricks. The mechanics of operant conditioning don't change with age, only the energy budget does. The app accounts for that: senior dogs get shorter blocks and lower-arousal lessons by default.
Will CritterU work for my breed?
Yes. The 75-lesson curriculum is breed-agnostic on the mechanics. Sit is sit. Recall is recall. The 12 problem areas cover the behaviors every breed produces.
The app adapts to your specific dog's progress, not to a breed stereotype. A high-drive border collie and a chill greyhound will both work on Loose-leash walking, but at different paces and with different distraction levels — because the app watches what your dog actually does, not what the AKC breed standard says.
(Edge cases: brachycephalic dogs, dogs with mobility issues, dogs with diagnosed clinical behavior conditions. The app flags lessons that may not be appropriate and routes you to a vet or behaviorist.)
How is this different from just watching YouTube videos?
YouTube is a content library: you search, you watch, you guess what to do next. CritterU is a routine: you don't search, the app picks the next lesson based on what your dog has actually mastered, drops you back to an easier version if a session goes sideways, and tells you what likely went wrong.
Practically: if your dog can sit at home but breaks on the doorbell, YouTube has 200 "stop jumping on guests" videos and no way to tell you which step you're on. CritterU knows you're between Level 3 ("reliable at home") and Level 4 ("reliable outdoors") of Default-sit-on-greeting, so the next session is sub-threshold doorbell practice — not a fresh lesson from scratch.
We also embed real owner videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok, X, and Threads inside each lesson, so you still get the visual examples — just attached to the lesson you're actually working on, moderated for quality and accuracy.
How is CritterU different from Pupford, Dogo, Puppr, Zigzag, Woofz?
Each of those is built around a single feature: Pupford = lifetime curriculum, Puppr = celebrity-trainer trick library, Dogo = routine but no level drop-backs, Zigzag = age-staged puppy-only, Woofz = chat-with-a-trainer with billing complaints.
CritterU is the only one where the daily routine, the per-lesson progress state, the prereq graph that gates lessons, and the focus areas are all wired into a single loop — with mastery levels that move both directions, plain-English mistake diagnostics, and a standalone sound toolkit. See the
side-by-side matrix for the full breakdown.
Do I need a clicker, treats, or any equipment?
Treats are the default reinforcer: high-value for new behaviors (cheese, chicken, freeze-dried liver), regular kibble for known behaviors, intermittent reinforcement for the long term. No food-skepticism dogma; no "treats are bribery" framing. If you want food-free options, the app supports praise, play, and access-to-reward as backup reinforcers.
Marker word "Yes!" is the default; a physical clicker is supported as a power-user option. Beyond that: a leash, a harness (no choke or prong, ever), a treat pouch, and a quiet room for the first sessions. That's it.
What's the deal with shock collars and "balanced" training?
The research is settled: positive-reinforcement training is at least as effective as aversive methods on every measurable outcome, and significantly better on long-term welfare. Aversive tools (shock, prong, pinch, sharp leash corrections) commonly produce fear, redirected aggression, or learned helplessness. CritterU rejects them by name. We won't tell you to use one, and we won't recommend trainers who do.
The Sound Toolkit gives you the beeps, tones, and whistles owners reach for in "beep-only" collar modes — built into the app, not strapped to your dog's neck. Same auditory cue, no aversive pairing, no risk of escalation.
How do the Sound Toolkit sounds work with a dog's hearing? Are they safe?
Dogs hear a wider and higher range than we do (roughly 67 Hz up to 45,000 Hz, versus a ceiling around 20,000 Hz for people), they pick up quieter sounds, and they pinpoint where a sound came from faster than we can. That sensitivity is the whole reason a clean, consistent sound is such a good training tool: your dog notices it instantly, even from across the yard, without you raising your voice.
The markers, tones, and whistles are conditioned cues, not something a dog is born understanding. A clicker or a "Yes!" means nothing until you pair it with a reward a few times. After that, the sound reliably tells your dog "that was the right choice, good things are coming," and the recall and settle tones build the same way. The sound carries meaning only because you taught it, which is what keeps it clear and predictable instead of startling.
Everything plays through your phone speaker at a normal, comfortable volume. None of it is an aversive: there is no shock, no painful blast, no ultrasonic "correction." Real "silent" whistles sit in an ultrasonic range built to be uncomfortable at distance; ours stay in the audible range you can hear too, used as a friendly signal your dog moves toward. If your dog ever flinches at a sound or backs away from it, turn the volume down or skip that one. The goal is always a cue your dog leans into, not away from.
Explore the Sound Toolkit →
What if my dog has serious aggression or resource guarding?
CritterU includes the standard prevention protocols (teaching that hands near the bowl mean more food, not less; working at a distance where your dog stays calm and closing it slowly; rewarding them for noticing something and looking back at you; and arranging the home so the behavior can't happen in the first place) but explicitly routes serious cases to a credentialed behaviorist. Specifically: if your dog has bitten a human or another dog hard enough to break skin, has guarded resources at a level that limits your daily life, or has been diagnosed with a clinical fear/anxiety disorder, you need a board-certified veterinary behaviorist (DACVB) or a CDBC, not an app.
CritterU replaces a $3,000 board-and-train. It does not replace a $300/hour DACVB consult for clinical work. We're upfront about that line because misapplying generic training to a clinical case can make things significantly worse.
Find a credentialed behaviorist near you →
Can I share progress with my partner, trainer, or dog walker?
Yes — that's what the Pack tab is for. Friend-request someone (they need a CritterU account, free Freshman tier is fine), accept, and you can share before/mid/after photos of specific lessons, message about a specific lesson, and get a notification when their dog masters something or vice versa.
Opt-in per lesson — you control what's shared. Not a public feed. Built so you can have a small circle of people who actually care about your dog's recall progress without posting to the internet.
How many dogs can I have on one account?
Free Freshman tier: one dog profile. Enrolled and Forever Home: unlimited. Each dog has its own profile, its own progress state, its own routine, its own pack notifications. Switch between them with one tap from the member area.
Foster owners and multi-dog households are explicitly supported. Adding a dog and removing one are both one-tap operations.
Does CritterU work offline? On a walk with no signal?
Mostly yes, and the Sound Toolkit was built specifically for that. Whistle, marker word, beeps, tones, and the calming track all live on your phone and play offline, so you can recall, reward, or de-escalate mid-walk with zero signal. It is meant to ride along on the leash, not stay parked inside a lesson screen.
Same for the rest of the app: CritterU is a Progressive Web App, so after the first load it caches the lesson content, the Sound Toolkit, and your dog's profile locally. You can run a full session offline and log the outcome; the log syncs the next time you have signal.
What needs signal: video embeds from YouTube/Vimeo/etc. (because those servers stream the video), the Pack feed (because friend updates come from our server), and the first-time download of new lessons you haven't opened before.
What happens if I switch phones or lose my device?
Your account and dog data live on our server, not your phone. Sign in on the new device with the email and password you used at signup, and everything's there: mastery levels, history, pack, schedule, settings. Photos you've taken stay on your old device; we don't auto-upload them.
The app installs to your home screen as a Progressive Web App on iOS and Android — no App Store account required. From the install prompt, "Add to Home Screen" gets you the same single-tap launch as a native app.
Do you sell my data? What's in the video library exactly?
We don't sell ads, we don't sell training data, we don't sell to brokers, we don't profile your dog for advertisers. We make money from subscriptions and one-time payments. That's the whole model.
About the video library: it's links to videos already posted on YouTube, Vimeo, Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok, X, or Threads — those videos are public on those platforms whether or not CritterU exists. We embed them inside the relevant lesson with moderation. We don't host the videos, we don't re-upload them, we don't strip the original creator's attribution. If you submit a link to a public video of your own dog, that video stays as public as you made it on the source platform.
Who built CritterU?
CritterU is part of
OYE Creations, a small independent shop building useful internet things. CritterU was built with input from Savanna, a CPDT-track training partner whose handout protocols form the spine of the 75-lesson curriculum. There is no VC investor, no growth team, no analytics-driven engagement dark pattern. Just a small team and a real curriculum.
How do I contact you?
Two ways:
1. Click the chat bubble the bee is sitting on in the lower-right corner of any page. That's our live chat. Type a question and we'll answer.
2. DM us on any of the social handles linked in the footer (Bluesky, X, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Snapchat). Real people read every message. Response time is usually within 24 hours, faster during business hours US Eastern. If you're reporting a bug, screenshots help a lot.
What are those scores at the top of the page (SEO 91, Security 83, etc.)?
Those are weekly automated audit scores from
droptimize.org, a sibling OYE Creations project that grades web pages on five Lighthouse-style metrics:
SEO — how well the page is structured for search engines (proper headings, meta tags, mobile-friendliness).
Security — HTTP security headers (Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, etc.) that prevent common attacks.
Performance — page load speed, layout stability, time to interactive.
Accessibility — screen-reader compatibility, color contrast, keyboard navigation, semantic HTML.
Best Practices — secure connections, no console errors, modern browser APIs.
Each score is out of 100. Higher is better. We display ours because most marketing sites quietly score in the 40s and 50s — CritterU aims to keep technical hygiene high so the experience stays fast, accessible, and trustworthy. The numbers refresh weekly from a live audit, so what you see is current.