What Makes A Quality Personal Dog Trainer?

An ideal dog trainer for your puppy should have a wide range of experience in dog behavior with many breeds who uses positive reinforcement as his/her main philosophy of training.

Although there are many good private dog trainers who do not have a degree from a dog training school, it would be better to choose those with training titles acquire in competition and/or participation in a dog training organization such as the Association of Pet Dog Trainer (APDT).

Home Training vs. Engaging a Dog Trainer

Every dog has the potential in him to be intelligent and well behaved, and what he needs is someone to bring the best out of him. Unfortunately, that someone may not always be you – the owner.

In most cases, it is the owner who is unclear on training their dog making the training laborious, boring, and confusing; rarely the other way around. The right dog trainer should realize that the ability of the dog to be trained effectively relies greatly on his owner’s ability to teach. Dog training is a two-part process—the owner as well as the dog needs training.

What is a Personal Dog Trainer?

If you think you need help in training your dog, there are two types of options for you to choose from, personal training and group training. Personal training is an exclusive one-on-one interaction between you, the trainer, and your dog. When choosing a personal dog trainer, you want someone who is willing to train both you and your dog instead of just focusing on the dog. What is more important is that the training is not a quick fix course of less than six weeks. Below are some of the qualifications that you should look for in a personal dog trainer.

A Quality Personal Dog Trainer Should…

• Provide a free consultation where he/she will come to your home and meet with you and your dog.
• Relate to you and understand where he/she is coming from in terms of questions and training requests.
• Be honest with you about what he can and cannot do in terms of specific training objectives.
• Be able to communicate with your dog, understand his personality, and be able to interpret what your dog is saying by observing his behavior.
• Take time, using gentle but persuasive methods to condition your dog to correctly respond to verbal commands.
• Teach you how to properly “talk to” your dog using dog language.
• Show you the importance of tolerance, patience, and understanding when working with your dog.
• Help you make certain arrangements in your home in order to accommodate the needs of your dog.
• Continue the conditioning program that occur with your dog at home so he understands your particular needs.
• Inform you about different changes in their dog’s behavior and what causes those changes to take place.

It does take time and patience to learn to understand why dogs do the things they do and that your dog learns your expectations. Hopefully, during training you will learn to “think” like a dog. And if you’re enjoying the training sessions as much as your dog does, you might want to consider going on to even bigger and better things in dog training.

Who knows? Somewhere out there, the next doggie super star in the making could be your dog.