PUPPY TRAINER, EDUCATOr, breeder, and research scientist
Meet Sarah Cochran
Where scientific curiosity, decades of experience, and real family life come together
I’m Sarah Cochran, the founder of The Trainable Puppy and SDG Goldens. I’m a trained research scientist, a professional dog groomer, a Golden Retriever breeder, a dog trainer, a rancher’s wife, and a homeschooling mother of five. Dogs and puppies have been woven into nearly every season of my life, from growing up with Golden Retrievers to raising puppies in the middle of our busy family home today.
My work is built on two perspectives that do not always appear together. The scientist in me wants to understand why something works, what the evidence actually shows, and whether a commonly repeated idea holds up under closer examination. The trainer and breeder in me knows that puppies are individuals, family homes are not controlled laboratories, and even a well designed lesson may need to change when the puppy in front of you responds differently than expected.
The Trainable Puppy brings those perspectives together. My goal is to help you understand not only what to teach your puppy, but what to notice, how to interpret the puppy’s response, and how to make a thoughtful decision about what to do next.
A Life Shaped by Dogs
My love for dogs began during childhood in Raytown, Missouri, where I helped breed and raise Golden Retrievers alongside my mother and brother. Those early experiences gave me a close view of pregnancy, birth, puppy development, individual temperament, and the relationships that form between dogs and the families who love them.
I later became a professional dog groomer and have groomed dogs for more than 25 years. Grooming may seem separate from puppy training, but it has taught me an enormous amount about canine behavior. A grooming appointment asks a dog to tolerate handling, unfamiliar equipment, unusual sounds, restraint, and close physical contact. Over the years, I learned to recognize small changes in posture, facial expression, movement, and attention that can reveal whether a dog is comfortable, uncertain, overwhelmed, or beginning to trust.
Working with so many dogs also showed me how differently they can experience the same situation. One dog may step confidently into something new while another needs time, distance, and a simpler introduction. Those differences do not make one dog good and another difficult. They tell us that each dog needs to be observed and taught as an individual.
I grew up raising Golden Retriever puppies alongside my mother and brother.
The Scientist Behind the Trainer
My academic background includes a bachelor’s degree in Animal Science from the University of Missouri and a master’s degree in Reproductive Physiology from South Dakota State University. I continued into 5 years of advanced doctoral study in Animal Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Florida, where I completed extensive coursework and conducted and published scientific research. I ultimately chose to step away before completing my dissertation so I could prioritize my growing family, but I never stopped thinking like a scientist.
Scientific training taught me how to ask careful questions, examine the quality of evidence, distinguish a promising idea from a proven conclusion, and reconsider my position when better information becomes available. Those habits continue to influence how I approach puppy development and training today.
I regularly follow research related to animal learning, behavior, development, socialization, stress, welfare, and the human-animal relationship. I do not believe that every new study should immediately become a rigid training rule, nor do I believe that years of experience make someone immune to being wrong. Research and experience are most useful when they inform one another.
Science helps us understand patterns, but the individual puppy still matters. A study can help explain how learning generally occurs, while the puppy in front of us shows whether the lesson is working for that puppy at that moment. My approach is to use the best information available, observe honestly, and remain willing to adjust.
Our Family, Our Farm, and Our Puppies
My husband, Michael, and I live with our five children on a 40 acre farm in Missouri. Our days include homeschooling, farm chores, meals, family responsibilities, and caring for an assortment of animals, including cattle, yak, chickens, peacocks, guinea fowl, and, of course, our Golden Retrievers.
Our puppies are raised in the heart of that life. They do not grow up isolated in a quiet building where every sound and interaction can be carefully controlled. They experience children, household activity, doors opening, dishes clattering, people coming and going, other animals, changing routines, and all the ordinary interruptions that happen in a real home.
Through SDG Goldens, raising puppies has become a family effort. Our children help puppies become comfortable with different voices, movements, handling styles, and forms of play. The puppies receive intentional developmental experiences, including Early Neurological Stimulation, Early Scent Introduction, structured socialization, exposure to different surfaces and environments, and carefully planned experiences outside our home. Our puppies have also participated in nursing home visits beginning at approximately six weeks of age, giving them an early introduction to new people, mobility equipment, unfamiliar surroundings, and calm social interaction.
These experiences have allowed me to watch puppies develop from birth through placement and beyond. I have seen confident puppies encounter something that causes uncertainty, cautious puppies discover unexpected courage, and highly motivated puppies struggle when they become tired or overstimulated. I have also stayed connected with many families after their puppies went home, helping them understand behavior, adjust routines, and navigate the transition from a carefully raised litter to an individual family home.
What Decades of Raising Puppies Have Taught Me
The most important lesson puppies have taught me is that training cannot be reduced to one perfect formula. Puppies share common developmental needs, but they do not all learn at the same speed, value the same rewards, recover from stress in the same way, or respond identically to the same exercise.
Some puppies approach the world with immediate confidence. Others pause and gather information before moving forward. Some are intensely interested in food, while others are more motivated by movement, play, praise, or access to something they want. A puppy may understand a lesson beautifully in the kitchen and appear to forget everything when the same exercise moves into the yard. That does not mean training has failed. It means something changed.
Learning to train the puppy in front of you begins with noticing those changes. Is the puppy confused, distracted, tired, excited, worried, or simply unable to understand what is being requested? Should you continue, simplify the lesson, change the environment, improve the reward, reduce the distraction, or stop and try again later?
This is why my teaching follows a four part process: Observe, Interpret, Adapt, and Evaluate. Rather than asking owners to copy a series of movements, I want them to learn how to make the next training decision. That ability remains valuable long after a puppy has learned the basic skills shown in a course.
Why I Show the Complete Training Process
Most puppy training videos show a polished demonstration in which the trainer appears to ask for a behavior and the puppy performs it correctly. Those demonstrations can be useful, but they often leave out the part new puppy owners need most: what happened before the puppy understood.
When I filmed Bingley from eight to twelve weeks of age, I wanted owners to see the complete learning process. That meant including the distractions, missed attempts, changes in strategy, moments of confusion, unexpected successes, and sessions that did not unfold exactly as planned.
The purpose was not to present Bingley as a perfect puppy or myself as a trainer who never has to reconsider what she is doing. The purpose was to show that thoughtful training is a responsive process. I wanted owners to hear what I noticed, understand why I changed an exercise, and see how the puppy’s response influenced what I did next.
The result became Training the Puppy in Front of You: The First 30 Days, a collection of more than 85 complete training sessions following Bingley through his first four weeks of training. The focused courses on potty and crate training and puppy confidence were created to provide deeper instruction, troubleshooting, and printable resources for those particular areas.
Each course is designed to help owners become more capable and confident, rather than making them dependent on a trainer for every decision.
What You Can Expect From My Teaching
Honest, complete instruction
I will not show you only the moments when everything works. Puppies become distracted, lessons need to be adjusted, and progress is rarely perfectly linear. Seeing the complete process helps you develop realistic expectations for yourself and your puppy.
Research informed guidance
I continue to review current research and consider how it applies to puppy development, learning, behavior, and welfare. When evidence is limited or a question does not have one certain answer, I believe it is important to say so.
Respect for the individual puppy
Training should consider the puppy’s age, temperament, confidence, environment, physical ability, and learning history. The goal is not to force every puppy through an identical process, but to help each puppy understand what is being asked.
Practical help for real homes
These courses were created in the middle of family life, not in a controlled training facility. The lessons are intended for people balancing puppy training with children, work, household responsibilities, interruptions, and ordinary daily life.
Detailed Resources You Can Keep and Use
The courses include a carefully developed library of companion guides, resource guides, planning tools, and printable downloads that help you move from watching Bingley to working thoughtfully with your own puppy. These are not brief lesson summaries or worksheets added as an afterthought. They are detailed, practical references designed to deepen your understanding, organize the training process, and help you decide what to work on next. You can return to them throughout your puppy’s development whenever you need a refresher, a plan, or a clearer explanation of the ideas demonstrated in the videos.
Built From Years of Supporting Puppy Families
Through SDG Goldens, we provide lifetime support to every family who brings home one of our puppies. My relationship with those families does not end when their puppy leaves our home. Over the years, I have spent countless hours answering questions, helping owners interpret behavior, talking through training challenges, and helping families adjust their approach as their puppies grow.
During that time, I began noticing a pattern. Some of the owners who struggled were not first time puppy owners at all. Many had raised several dogs and naturally expected their new puppy to learn, respond, and settle into family life much like the puppies they had owned before. When the new puppy behaved differently, the familiar methods and routines did not always produce the same results.
Those families did not simply need another list of commands or another demonstration of a perfectly trained dog. They needed help recognizing what this particular puppy was communicating, understanding why an exercise was or was not working, and deciding what to change. They needed to learn how to train the puppy in front of them, rather than the puppy they remembered raising before.
After years of providing this kind of individual guidance, I wanted to create a program that owners could begin using from the very start. I also wanted to make that guidance available beyond the families who receive an SDG Goldens puppy, so more owners could learn the same observation and decision making process.
I want owners to feel encouraged enough to keep learning, observant enough to recognize when something needs to change, and confident enough to make thoughtful decisions. I also want them to understand that a puppy’s mistakes are information. They show us what the puppy understands, what may be too difficult, and where the lesson needs greater clarity.
If my courses help you see your puppy more clearly, communicate more thoughtfully, and build a relationship based on understanding rather than frustration, then The Trainable Puppy is accomplishing exactly what I created it to do.
Ready to Train the Puppy in Front of You?
Whether you are preparing to bring home a new puppy, working through potty and crate routines, building confidence through safe socialization, or beginning foundational training with an older dog, you can choose the course that best fits the support you need right now.