If you'd like to learn how to help people and their dogs, I offer a comprehensive master's course. The instruction is geared specifically for each student's needs. We'll meet at your convenience, and work around your schedule. Once you're ready, I'll also oversee your first ten sessions with new clients.
Another option is the upcoming "Train-the-Trainer" seminar in Newfane, Vermont. August 1st-17th, taught by the inventor of Natural Dog Training, Kevin Behan.
Whether you've never trained professionally before and want to start learning how, or if you're already a dog trainer but want to learn more about how Natural Dog Training works and why it's more effective than other training systems, call or e-mail me or Kevin today! Why should you study with me or Kevin?
Being a dog trainer is both a gift and a calling. It’s not something you can learn overnight, or become skilled at simply by hanging out at the dog run, reading books, watching Animal Planet, or by looking at training videos. Yet in the past 10 years or so the number of people in New York City who’ve decided that they’re professional dog trainers has increased exponentially. One of my clients told me that when she first arrived in the city with her dog, she met someone new every day who claimed to be a dog trainer and had a business card to prove it.
The truth is not everyone who claims to be a dog trainer is really equipped for the task, even well-known "experts." For instance, I know of a veterinary behaviorist who’s a widely-acclaimed expert on dogs. He gives seminars all around the country. He’s written numerous books and produced several training videos. And yet by most reports he’s a terrible dog trainer. On his blog, not long ago, he even asked the following question: “Why isn’t dog training working as well as it used to?”
Meanwhile, I know of a guy here in the city, who makes his living as dog walker, yet in my book he’s the second-best dog trainer in New York, even though no one has ever heard of him.
Why the difference? Simple: one understands textbooks while the other understands dogs.
I think it’s also important to realize that there’s a vast difference between being an obedience instructor—someone who teaches classes or shows owners how to teach their dogs to sit, give paw, etc—and being an actual dog trainer—someone who understands all aspects of canine behavior, training and learning, and who is capable of taking any dog, at either end of the aggressive/fearful spectrum, and turning that emotionally-wounded animal into a well-balanced and well-behaved family pet. And in most cases, the key to becoming someone like that, someone who can do that on a regular basis, is threefold: 1) you have to have a natural aptitude, 2) you have to spend years studying dogs, how they learn and behave, under any and all conditions, and 3) you have to either study with or have some kind of direct contact with a master trainer.
So, if you’d like to become a real dog trainer—someone who can make a real and lasting difference in a dog’s life, and in the lives of the people who love him or her—be aware of what’s required. It takes more than a business card.