So your furry best friend is in need of training. Maybe he’s jumped on you one time too many when you arrived home from work or he keeps destroying your favorite shoes. Perhaps, he keeps begging for food when your family is trying to have a peaceful dinner or he’s barking so much that you’re scared that your neighbors are going to call the cops on you for disturbing the peace. Whatever the reason, you feel its time for your pup to learn to behave like a civilized Puppy trainers near me.
When choosing a dog trainer or dog training school there are a few important things you need to be aware of so you don’t end up making the wrong choice. There are exceptional dog trainers, and there are terrible dog trainers make certain that you get a good one.
1) Free Initial Consultations
When choosing a dog trainer it’s critical that you find a trainer that is a good fit not just for your dog but for you as well. Most dog trainers will not charge for an initial consultation to evaluate you and your dog. So make appointments with several different trainers in order to interview them.
Your goal is to get a feel for the trainer and watch to see how the dog trainer relates to your dog and to you. You’ll want to take this opportunity to discover which techniques they will use to train your dog.
2) Ask For References
Be sure to ask for references from other owners who have the same breed that you do since not all techniques work equally for all breeds. But in my experience though, it’s not always safe to trust references given to you directly by the person you want to hire, since they could be paid to give a positive referral. This is especially true if you found the trainer yourself through the yellow pages and not through personal referral.
When talking to a reference, one of the best ways to push past any potential BS is to ask them “what they don’t like about this trainer”. Be suspicious if everyone gives glowing testimonials without a single issue. Afterall, no one is perfect.
3) Look for Honesty
Speaking of no one being perfect, another way to get a feel for the type of person you’re dealing with is to ask them this simple question. What are you not so good at when training dogs? They should be honest enough to tell you what they have trouble with or at least what they are trying to improve on. Even seasoned professionals are always trying to get better at their job. In some cases it’s actually better to work with someone who is not perfect than someone who thinks they’re Gods gift to their profession.
4) Pay Attention To Your Dog
As you probably are aware of dogs are usually able to pick up details about people that we miss. So it’s important to pay attention to how your dog reacts to the trainer. If they’re on edge there’s probably a reason.