How to Choose a Dog Training School &
Why Professional Training Helps Your Dog
Dog training schools are the ideal way to help your new friend learn to fit into your family and home.
A dog starts out as a wild animal, regardless of the circumstances of the puppy’s birth. Training a dog right, keeps your dog a close, trusted member of the family. It also helps your dog’s health when you can communicate what’s important.
If your lifestyle doesn’t allow you to spend ample time with your new puppy to establish the right behavior starting with day one, you may need to consider sending them to a dog training school for basic obedience and behavior training.
How Important is Your Puppy’s Training?
Your puppy can grow up to be a mature member of your family, or a complete nuisance. It all depends on proper training. If you’re not able to provide that personally, a professional dog training school can be as important as puppy shots to your dog’s health.
How To Choose a Dog Training School
Before you pay for classes and drop off you pet at a puppy campus, you should know what your expectations are, and make sure they’re being met. Here are a few expectations we think you should value, and how to make sure they’re being met.
- What is their training style? Humane styles of dog training … more than just the right thing to do, more than just the law – a dog training school with doing things humanely, is also much more effective. Negative training methods suck the life out of your dog, so look for a positive training method that uses dog whisperer techniques, such as the clicker dog training method. In any case, you should expect that a trainer will focus mainly on encouraging good behavior through positive repetition.
- Are they accredited professionals? Dog training is not a fast-and-loose trade for amateurs. Take two basic steps: 1. Ask to see their credentials. 2. Verify the credentials, and they from a reputable source?
- Judge the dog training school’s personality. Watch them work. You need to see that the dogs they’re training, aren’t afraid of the trainer or staff. If they won’t allow this, if they even hesitate to allow this, consider crossing them off your list. If you observe them at work with the dogs, you’ll quickly get a sense of how the dogs feel about being there.
- Ask a local vet and/or rescue shelter. These industries – dog trainers, veterinarians, rescue workers and even dog groomers – all work together as a community. It’s perfectly fine to expect your dog training school to prove themselves within the rest of that community, before you even give them the time of day.
- Set your training goals. You know what your puppy’s problems are, and you know what your lifestyle is. Write it down and talk about it with your trainer. There are various different structures for training; one school could expect students to live at the school, 24 hours a day, until the training is complete. Others may expect you to leave and retrieve your puppy daily. Know what you’re getting into.
- Protect your puppy’s health. If a dog training school will let you submit your dog or puppy for training, without showing them proof of puppy vaccinations, that’s a problem. Asking you with a casual hand-wave, whether or not you did the vaccinations, isn’t good enough. If they don’t insist on seeing the certificates of vaccinations, they don’t care enough.
- Test for excellence. Will they work with you and your puppy individually if necessary? Are they patient with questions? Can they describe to you, without hesitation, what sorts of one-on-one help they’re ready to provide? Will they give you thorough training so that you can maintain the training at home once your puppy graduates from school? They should.
- Finally, be aware of the costs and the terms of service. Even if you normally glance past the fine print, don’t do that here. Imagine yourself coming to retrieve your best friend for their graduation, only to find your dog held hostage over hidden fees. This isn’t common, but no business is 100% safe from shady dealings. If you think it’s bad to have your car impounded, just imagine how you’d feel if it was your dog…
Final Note about Dog Training Schools
Dog training schools aren’t “one stop shops.” The role of a professional dog trainer is to get both you, and your dog, accustomed to the learning and growing process. Any good dog trainer will say it up-front: Paying a dog trainer is not an excuse for you to be a poor master. Take their advice seriously and remember that your dog is being taught, among other things, to follow your lead. If you don’t maintain the leadership role with the right at-home follow-up, you’re wasting money and time. Even worse, it’s a sacrifice of your pet’s well-being.
Return to the Dog Obedience Training homepage.