How to Become a Professional DOG TRAINER

this video is for anyone who wants to work with dogs or if you already work with dogs and want to upgrade your business by becoming a certified dog trainer first off I do need to mention that regulations are different in different countries around the world all of my experience comes from Canada and the United States so if you’re from somewhere outside of North America then I highly recommend doing a little bit of extra research on this currently there are no certifications in North America when it comes to dog training that means that there are no specific types of diplomas or schooling or certification that you need in order to claim that you are a dog trainer it’s not like becoming a doctor where you need to go to med school and get your diploma and do all of that stuff in order to say that you’re a doctor so obviously there are a lot of problems with this in the industry with people having zero experience claiming that they are dog trainers but it’s also good for you in the sense that you can pick a certification program that is right for you and your learning style I also need to mention that as a dog trainer oftentimes you are training the human clients more than you’re training the actual dogs there’s only so much that you can get done in a one-hour session with a dog so what you need to do is you need to train the human in order to train the dog because they’re with them 24/7 and if you just use a 1 hour training session it’s not gonna stick with the dogs you need to encourage them to work with that continuously so your people skills are just as important as your skills with animals before we get into the certifications and things like that I do need to talk about the four quadrants of dog training this is so important for you to know probably the most important thing when you’re choosing your program for certification you may be wondering why this is important it is absolutely essential because the absolute worst thing to happen would be to pick a program pay the money and then get started just to realize that the methods and techniques just do not suit you at all so we need to know what those four quadrants are so that you can choose a program that suits that basically there are four main ways that you can train a dog all of them have been proven to be effective and there are pros and cons to each one I’m not gonna be getting into the pros and cons in this video I’m just gonna be introducing you to them so that you can go and do some more research if you need to look into them yourself you’ve probably heard of some of them and there might be a few that are new to you reinforcement is anything that makes a behavior whether good or bad more likely to occur in the future and punishment is something that makes a behavior less likely to occur in the future most of us have heard of positive reinforcement which is when you give your dog a treat or praise when they’ve done something that you like in the hopes that they’re going to continue that in the future negative reinforcement is when something that your dog doesn’t like is remove from the situation so if your dog is growling at you and you take a step back then your dog got what it wanted so it’s more likely to growl in the future positive punishment is when you add something averse to the situation after your dog does something that you don’t like so this would be something like jerking the leash or using an e-collar after your dog has done something that you don’t want and finally we have negative punishment which is when you remove something positive from the situation we see this a lot with children when they’ve done something naughty and you take away their iPad it’s the same with dogs most trainers will use a combination of techniques from all of the different quadrants depending on how the dog learns I also need to note that what is classified in each quadrant is completely dependent on the dog so for example a dog who loves to get baths that may be seen as positive reinforcement for them but if a dog absolutely hates it that could be seen as positive punishment so it really depends on the dog so I do think that it is very important for you to do your research into each of these quadrants and find a program that suits that okay now let’s talk about certification programs like I said there are no regulations so there’s not one certification that you absolutely need to get it really is dependent on how you learn and the type of knowledge that you want to gain that being said I do think it is very important for you to get as much schooling and knowledge as you can because you are dealing with people’s four babies you need to know what you’re doing that being said though there are a lot of amazing dog trainers some of the best in the world who don’t have any kind of certifications or licensing or things like that they just learn through experience and through working underneath other amazing dog trainers so it’s not absolutely essential to have certain types of certifications there are some dog trainers that will get really snooty about this just ignore them and do what works for you so there are dog trainers and dog behaviorist dog trainers typically work with things like tricks or house training things like that whereas behaviorist get more into the more sticky situations so separation anxiety or aggression that type of thing a lot of programs will offer both and most dog trainers deal with both types of issues but it’s important to know in the program that you’re looking at if you do get into the behavior stuff or not and if it’s not in your program that does not mean it’s not that it’s a bad program but you might want to take some extra courses so that you understand how to deal with these issues in addition to what you’re already learning there are a lot of really reputable online certifications which I’m gonna be linking in the description section for you guys if you want to check that out the problem that I have with this is that sometimes people will come out of these programs having a lot of book knowledge but not actually having a lot of hands-on practice because they are online so if you are gonna do one of these certifications then I do highly highly recommend getting as much hands-on experience as you possibly can at the same time so whether that is working as a dog walker during the process or working with your neighbor’s dog or your own dog or becoming a volunteer at a local dog shelter anything that can you you can use the skills and the techniques that you’re learning in your class and then use them hands-on will just make you a better dog trainer in the end many larger dog training facilities will have dog trainer programs where they basically bring you in and you help with classes and you shadow under other people and they’ll train you in the process and a lot of these are very hands-on this is the route that I ended up taking because I know for me personally I need the hands-on stuff like I’m all for reading about the techniques and everything but if I’m not practicing them I don’t I don’t learn it in the same way so I knew that for me I needed something that was hands-on where I was working with dogs every single day and that’s why these types of programs are really good so you can look in your area you may have a local dog training facility and go check with them check if they have any types of programs or also you can shadow their classes it may be that you just end up filling up dog bowls in the beginning but it’s a good way of seeing and learning through practice you can also shadow another dog trainer this is really great because it will give you real golden nuggets of knowledge when it comes to working with actual real clients and their pets there is one certification that I highly highly recommend if you are serious about this it does take a little bit longer because you have to pass an exam log a certain amount of dog training hours and pay some money but it is very very worthwhile so this is definitely something that you want to do after you’ve been professionally dog training for a little while it’s called CC PDT I will link it below for you guys you can just google it and find out all of the different things about that everyone’s pathway to dog training is different there are a lot of people in the dog training world who think that one path and one certification is the only way to do it don’t let those people get to you because just because you have a fancy certification does not mean you have more hands-on experience there are a lot of people who graduate from these programs and they’re really book smart but they don’t actually know how to physically do it but also on the other hand you don’t want to only know the physical side and not know the techniques so you really do need to find a balance between that thank you guys for watching this video I hope that it was helpful for you like I said I am gonna be linking some things down in the description section if you want to check them out if you know if anything that I missed out on then please leave it in the comment section so we can all learn about that as well and we can help as many people on their pathway to becoming a dog trainer as we possibly can make sure you subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already and follow me on all my social and I will see you guys in the next video …

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