Folks, be careful who you trust your dog’s training to.

The advice you follow will dictate the outcome of your dogs behaviour and ultimately guide the path you and your dog are on for years to come.

I’m working with an array of dogs & their owners right now, who have gone to other trainers before me who have suggested or employed the most bizarre, useless and in some cases harmful “dog training” leaving both the dogs and owners confused and frustrated.

Here are but a few examples of what I see and hear on a regular basis from people who have gone to dog trainers who have misguided them:

“if you don’t like what your dog is doing, ignore it”
“ if you don’t like your dog nipping or jumping up, poke him in the ribs”
“if he doesn’t listen, put him in his cage for time time out”
“If he doesn’t listen, don’t feed him”
“your dog is anxious and needs Prozac“
“your dog is hopeless. There’s nothing to be done“
“this dog is untrainable“
“Your dog is stubborn and like a dumb blonde in high heels (I actually have video of this dog on my site after I trained him and he is a lovely dog who is very trainable and his owners were thrilled to find out how wrong their original trainer was!)

This is a short and sanitized version of what I hear on a regular basis.
Every single case the dogs were trainable, in most cases, very trainable, and a lot of fun to work with.
The owners were unfortunately duped into believing what the trainers were telling them based on the trainers ability to “sell“.  Either through Credentials (certifications and memberships), experience “… I’ve been doing this for X years“ and in some cases the hard sell (think used car dealership).  

Real dog training providing quality of life for both human and dog

At the end of the day, dog training should provide results. Real results that improve the quality of life for dog and owner.
Results take time and require knowledge, energy and effort, patient and consistency.
Results should show themselves when things are being done properly. Is after several weeks or even months of working with a trainer and your dog, you are not seeing an improvement or in some cases things are going from bad to worse this is a clear sign that things are not working.