Professional Dog Trainer

I have always been a dog person and I am interested in becoming a professional dog trainer. I know we have some here on site so I was wondering if you could give me some information about schools and prices and how long it took.

I was looking into this school. http://animalbehaviorcollege.com/index.asp
Does anyone have any advice or helpful infomation about what I should do if I want to persue this as a career.

 

Although ABC is a good start, one school isn't going to teach you everything there is to know. Even with a few weeks of hands on courses. It's certainly a good start, but only time and lots of hands on work can mold you into a decent trainer. Time, dedication, busting your ass and a LOT of trial and error.

If it were me, I'd invest in a helluva lotta good books, apprentice under a good trainer for a few years and train my own dog(s) to some titles.

Just my .02. Good luck.

 

Looking for a little more info thanks though.

 

I graduated from this place in 1991.
http://www.kromerhaus.com/index.html
It took about a month and after graduation I started my own freelance dog training business part time after my full time job. Eventually I bought a boarding, grooming, training business. The school you are looking into seems to be a do it yourself at home thing and I wouldnt recommend that. You might as well just get some training books on your own and do it yourself. You really need hands on training that only a qualified instructor can show you. That is a good start. Dogged gave good advice. Work your dogs to their obedience titles, then you have a selling point you can show your clients what you have to offer.

 

Actually, they will have you apprentice with a local dog trainer and you sit and work with their classes that they have after all the book stuff is done.

 

I didnt have the time to read through all the info this afternoon. It looks like a decent basic obedience program to get you started. It really all boils down to how much you want to spend and what you want to learn. If you look at a place like this:
http://www.tomrose.com/
It offers a much more rounded program, but your going to pay more money.

 

This ones not too far from you. I've been thinking about going here...

http://www.schoolfordogtrainers.com/

 

$10,000 for a school to teach you how to train dogs? That's just crazy as far as I'm concerned. I started training dogs for money at the age of 14. I later went on to work under a couple of trainers who had been doing it for many years and I learned quite a bit that way. However, most of what I learned, I learned with hands on experience - being one on one with the dogs.

The hardest part about dog trainging - especially basic obedience, isn't training the dogs, it's training the owners. I've not trained dogs - at least not for money in quite a few years, but did so off and on for 13 years. If you really want to do it, read all the books. Know all the theories and go to dog parks and just observe animal behavior.

Just b/c you go to a school, doesn't get you past the hard part -that's finding people who want to pay you to do what most of them could do on their own if they just take the time. There are a ton of people out there that fancy themselves dog trainers that have been at it for quite some time. Word of mouth is your best friend in that business. So learn all you can, but don't go into debt learning how to teach the basics.

Best of luck to you no matter which path you decide to go.

 

I have always enjoyed training dogs and working with them and I want to do something I enjoy. I just recently started researching Dog training and different schools. I dont feel like paying that much money for something that just comes naturally to me. I also dont like the fact that most of dog training is people/owner training. Most the time I love the dogs and dont care about the owners. This is probally not a good career choice for me. I just want to do something I enjoy and I figured if nothing else the abc school would just give me a little extra help training my dogs.

Thanks everyone for your great replies.

 

I feel the same way. I love training dogs --be it teaching commands or correcting dominant behavior-- but showing people how to take control of their dogs is a pain! It comes naturally to me and to explain it to people who just don't understand dogs is like speaking to someone who doesn't comprehend your language.