Why would you need to hire a dog trainer anyway? This is a question that many people ask
when the subject comes up. You often hear people claiming to have managed to train their
old dog without such help. These same well meaning folks will often go on to tell you
about the antiquated methods that grandpa handed down such as hitting "Old Trusty" on the nose with a rolled up newspaper, or hanging a dead chicken around his neck to teach him not to kill animals. Dog training toys
The person educated in the correct use of dog training and canine psychology when hearing these
types of tales will secretly be thinking, it was amazing that old "Trusty" survived grandpas abuse.
Maybe he did by avoiding being around grandpa at any cost. "Trusty" probably saw grandpa and ran in the opposite direction or low crawled his way to him with the anticipation of more abuse. Beating a dog into submission is not training! Training, when done properly, uses the intelligence of the human race to manipulate the dog into desired behavior, not our barbaric caveman side.
So back to the original question of "Why would you hire a pet dog trainer? " Most people do so when they run into problems that they fully understand they lack the knowledge to solve. Usually frustration has built up when the dog is constantly having house breaking issues, or he is destroying items in the home or yard. He may have a running away issue, or just be unruly in general. Dog training is often the last effort owners make in saving the dog from being delivered to a shelter. The most intelligent of owners however, will use dog training to solve these problems BEFORE they ever become issues. As a dog trainer, my favorite clients are the ones that call before they get the puppy. They know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. They often will ask questions about the tendencies of their breed of choice BEFORE making the selection. This in and of itself can prevent them from starting off on the wrong foot or making the wrong choice for their situation. A good example of this is the 75 year old grandmother who lived in a condo who wanted to know if I thought it was a good idea for her to take on the Alaskan Malamute puppy that her grandchildren had bought and now no longer wanted to keep. The issues with the puppy were unruliness, destruction, and jumping up on people. The last of which would obviously been a problem for a 75 year old woman. We finally resolved the issue by deciding that the appropriate thing to do would be for the grandchildren (who were teenagers) to keep and train the dog. Grandma paid for it. The puppy kept his now happier home. Grandma lived a happier life than she would with the possibility of a broken hip caused by a well meaning but overly zealous puppy.
The aforementioned puppy was trained first at 5 months of age with all of it's basic obedience, problem solving, and home manners (stopping at doors, gates, boundaries, and coming in and laying in "place" in a relaxed down stay) as well as giving the owners proper management techniques such as the use of a crate and dog run area when they were not there to monitor the dogs behavior. As he became an even larger teenager of approximately one year of age, he continued his education into a more advanced level of training to insure that he remained manageable. This family was able to not only retain their dog but to enjoy him into old age, all because Grandma made a very important phone call and found out what she could do about a situation with a puppy that was getting out of control for the entire family.
So now that we know why people hire Pet Dog Trainers, the next question should be "How do I find a good one? " This is not an easy question to answer because it requires a bit of explaining as to how one becomes a Pet Dog Trainer. I keep referring to the trainer as a Pet Dog Trainer rather than just a trainer because there are many different types of trainers. The are for instance Movie Dog Trainers, Sport Dog Trainers (for specific competitions), Police Dog Trainers, Gun Dog Trainers, etc. Each of these types of trainers has in common that they train dogs but the applications are vastly different and most don't correlate well to Pet Dog Training. The Pet Dog Trainer needs to know how to train any breed of dog to be a good pet. This is more difficult than it sounds because it requires that the trainer be able to adjust their methods according to the individual dog (breed, temperament, size etc)
Although some trainers start out in a particular field such as Sport Dog Training, or Police Dog Training, and then move on to Pet Dog Training, this requires an addition to their education. Unfortunately many of these types never get that education and try to apply their old techniques that may have been applicable on a Sport Dog (take shock collars for instance) a clients pet Maltipoo. In our opinion, the best education that a Pet Dog Trainer can get is working for another Pet Dog Trainer for a minimum of one to two years. It is true that there are courses around that offer certification in training but few of them provide any substantial experience with numbers of dogs.
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