Choosing a professional dog trainer to board and train your dog? Yes or no?

Relationship building takes time, lots of time.

If you ask my professional opinion If you should hire a professional dog trainer to train your dog, my honest answer is no. This will sound weird to most of you as I talk against my own business. Don’t get me wrong dog training is what put bread on my table and food for my family but I would not recommend sending my own dogs to a professional dog trainers in many cases.

Sending your dog to a dog trainer and get him back two or three weeks later fully trained is possible by many trainers but in my opinion not a good idea. These “professional trainers” are getting the dog to perform expected behavior by force. Its old school training and the dollar is very important. The less time the trainer spends on getting the dog doing the things he want him to do the more money he makes.  In many cases the ways practiced by these trainers are almost abusive. The relationship between the dog and handler goes directly down the toilet. It is very unfortunate that still many dog trainers and people train their dog this way.  In my eyes it is simply stupid.  That is why I will always train your dog in your presents and better I will train you to train your dog or in case of my board and train programs I am building a relationship myself first based upon trust, respect and Fun. That takes time, most of my board and trains are here for 6 months for simple obedience to 2 years for a fully trained personal protection dog.

Professional dog training is a good choice if the trainer will come to your house and spend time with you in helping to create a balanced relationship between you and your dog. The dog lives with you and spends most of his time with the family he lives with and not with the dog trainer. So it’s very important that the dog gets engaged with you and thrust you.  And this is where a professional dog trainer can help and is the right choice.

Building a relationship and thrust between you and your dog takes time, lots of time and lots of work.  Getting the dog engaged with you takes time. Establishing a pack structure in your family takes time. Motivating your dog to do something takes time but also insight and knowledge about your dog’s temperament, his (genetic) drive, your relationship with your dog, and many other factors such as, picking the right training location, distraction, etc. This is where a professional dog trainer can assist you in building the balanced relationship what every dogs need. When the groundwork is laid out, teaching your dog a few tricks is easy. 

Like I said before, training dog’s takes time, in fact the whole life of your dog when you do it correctly. Unfortunately many trainers don’t understand that a dog can make mistakes during his training process and correct him immediately when he does not do what has been asked. This creates nervousness within the dog and will destroy the relationship between you and the dog. Another common mistake is that many other trainers will never stop their dog to perform and will continues lure their dog. An example is that they will use food and lure their dog in a Sit position. Nothing wrong with that, I use food all the time especially in the begin period of training but when the dogs knows what is expected from him I allow him to make mistakes and tell him “NO – This is wrong -  try again – no reward for what you did”. When you do this correctly the dog will understand what is expected and will be motivated to work harder for his reward. Your dog will be more engaged in his own training process.  

In this whole process a professional dog trainer can help you, to say it better; he will help you to train your own dog by training you! So good luck by choosing the right trainer for you and have fun in the further training with your loved one.