Why It’s Important to Complete a Comprehensive Academy to Work as a Professional Certified Dog Trainer

In the past if someone wanted to learn how to train dogs and work professionally in the field, there were fewer opportunities available than exist now. Some would apprentice with someone already in the field, but often that was with people not really qualified themselves, with no education or up-to-date animal behavior information; then there was a movement towards taking weekend seminars on topics or a brief worship - while these can be good continuing education opportunities, they tend to not provide the comprehensive amount of information one needs in order to be a competent pro dog trainer. Similarly, veterinarians have an in-depth program that takes years - they don’t enter their field by taking a few random workshops.

Today, there are larger courses available, but many still lack a complete education. For example, I attended one course that focused on teaching clicker training skills for training foundation behaviors (AKA obedience behaviors), tricks, and some basic behavior problems, but avoided covering dog aggression, separation anxiety, reactivity - what are typically considered more complex cases. And on some level this is okay. Each trainer should only be working cases that they have the skills and knowledge to complete at a competent level - and should refer other cases to specialists. But the problem with having a course only cover partial amounts of information is that it leads to future trainers with an ignorance of important concepts that arise when working the job.

For example, if a trainer is teaching basic obedience and she learns over time that that individual dog also reacts on-leash and has bitten some people, that trainer will be out of her element for working that case, and what often occurs is the person either doesn’t refer the case (or not fast enough) because she thought she took a full course, or she provides the wrong information to people, such as the dog is dominant, or he’s alpha, or he’s behaving that way because of spite or some other false idea. This ends up spreading more inaccurate information to everyone involved and can result in dogs and/or people getting hurt.

So even if trainers ultimately do not take on aggression cases, they should still have a rudimentary idea of dog behavior including aggression and anxiety, and so on. 

And when people have completed a more comprehensive program, when they do refer cases they can set the dogs and their people up to succeed by providing a brief overview of the behavior, an acceptable training method for it, and refer to the appropriate trainer - who will use the correct humane training method.

For example, some good trainers don’t take separation anxiety cases, but when they learn a dog has this behavior, they can let the dog guardians know a bit about this behavior - that it is a fear/anxiety of being alone - the dog is panicking - and not destroying their home/stuff out of malice towards them, and a good training program will focus on gradually desensitizing the dog to being comfortable home alone. 

So in this case, no full training plan was given to the dog’s guardians, they will get that from the trainer they are referred to, but they will now have a basic understanding about the behavior and what the plan may look like a bit. 

If you want a comprehensive program on dog behavior, training, and welfare, our Dog Training+ Academy can provide you with the appropriate scientific background on animal behavior so you can help people and their pets as a professional certified dog trainer.