Dog Trainer Business
So you've decide that you will now become a dog trainer, even more, you're going to make a business out of it. Television has shown a number of dog trainers' and you bet that their making a pretty good living. You're probably right, but does it follow that you can make a living being a dog trainer, or even make much money at all. More importantly, do those shows on television represent reality?
As with any career, and it is a career, there are several different requirements to making a living being a dog trainer. First, you have to decide that making a living training dogs is what you really want to do. Well of course it is, why else would you do it?
Of course it really isn't that simple. I started working with dogs in the early 1960s, formally training my first dog in 1971 and for the last 33 years have had a training organization comprised of five heavily experienced trainers. Now, after training several thousand dogs it is fair to say that making a living hasn't been one of the results. To be fair, that was never a primary goal.
First, take a hard look at the community in which you live. Ask yourself the question, "Are there be enough prospective clients willing to pay reasonable fees?" It is a simple fact that the larger, more sophisticated urban areas will command larger fees as well as providing a much larger prospective client base. Then there is the type of dog (canine) training you plan to do because that really defines that prospective client base and the applicable fees.
Whether you have been around the training of canines or not, it should be quite evident that the fee for training someone's canine for basic obedience would only be a small fraction of the fee for training a service canine (such as a guard dog or an attack dog or a drug sniffing dog, or a hunting canine, or a search canine, or a herding canine, or a dog for the blind or handicapped). Depending on the type of training that you offer, where you live, competition, and your reputation, fees can range from a low of well under $50 for a series of basic obedience classes to several thousand for highly trained specialized service dogs.
Even the training of obedience canines can take on various levels of fees.If you train a class' of obedience couples (handler plus dog) you are training the handler to do the daily practicing and training of the canine. You (as a trainer) are likely investing about an hour a week for about 5 to 9 weeks with up to maybe 10 entrants. However, you could also charge for taking the dog into boarding at your training site and doing the daily training and practicing yourself and then returning it to the owner completely trained. Clearly the latter will be a higher fee but will also be a larger investment of your time and resources.
As you can see, many factors contribute to defining prospective income generation. A significant part of that calculation is your capability. That is, what can you really do? That is, as a canine trainer. The most straight foreword training is beginning obedience' for the general public. By and large this includes a few selective exercises. Such as to sit, heel, stand, stay, come, socialization, as examples. That seems pretty straight foreword, however, you'll quickly find out that even this beginning obedience' brings with it unanticipated complexities for you the trainer.
These complexities come from the fact that you are teaching people' that they have a dog. That seems so obvious, but over the years we have found that as many as 40% of any class has people who do not understand what canines are, and many will never make that transition no matter how much training you provide. In addition, while most people will follow the training and do the practicing, they have no real desire to become trainers' and simply want their dogs to live with them with less conflict and your work includes addressing various personal problems. The dog that jumps in greeting on its owner every time the owner comes home, the dog that continues to urinate in the house, the dog that growls at its owners when it eats, the dog that eats' the owners shoes, and ever so many other challenges of a dog living in a people house. You may think that the solution to each of these is in a book' or the same for every dog, but that is where being an experienced trainer becomes important because such an assumption really isn't true.
Training canines does have some learning that can be more or less rote (at least to a limited degree) but canine behaviorism is a major part of successful training and that is a life long learning experience. The first thing to understand is that canine behavior has many potential causes for apparently similar actions. While all Canis Familiaris ( our various dogs) are all canines and have an indirect ancestral path back to the species Canis Lupis (wolf) through village dogs (the transition animal between wolf and our domesticated dog), the traits of the wolf do not come equally (or totally) to today's various breeds (which number between 400 and 500 domesticated breeds world wide).Today's domestic dogs have clearly been genetically altered physically, but they have also been genetically altered in terms of behavior. As a trainer, learning these breed unique behaviors is part of training.
You will also have dogs come to you from all types of backgrounds and experiences.Increasingly the rescued dog is coming to training classes. While this is an excellent trend, such dogs come with all types of behavior baggage.As a trainer it is part of your job to (as much as is possible) determine as to behavior causes within the context of a specific breed's behavior and judge at that specific dog's behavior being caused by past experiences.
As a trainer you also should become familiar with all' types of equipment. People will come to your class using different types of equipment.You will see leashes that are leather, nylon, chain, canvas. You will see collars that are slip collars (often referred to as choke collars) made of leather, nylon, chain. You will see prong or pinch collars, you will see gentle leaders and halties. You will see harnesses, of various types. We've even had people show up with log chains and shock collars. Each of these have correct ways of use and incorrect ways of use. It may seem logical to just demand that they all use the collar and leash that you tell them to use, but keep in mind, you're in the business to make a living and (particularly in basic obedience) your dealing with a public that has many different needs and desires and their may be times when you'll have teach with equipment not of your choosing, so you better understand how to use it.
In addition different dogs respond differently to different types of equipment. Your job is to have that client duo (dog and handler) leave your class working better together than when they came. For example, one time we had a young lady come to our class with her pit bull. The girl was very upset on the telephone because the dog was not responding and she was afraid that she would have to get rid of it. When she drove in and park, she was wrestling with the dog and through the window she expressed that she was worried about letting the dog out of the car and was afraid it would hurt someone or another dog. I could she that she had a Gentle leader collar on the dog (which someone had told her she had to use) as well as a harness which she used to attempt to muscle the dog.
I made her open the dog and took it from her and promptly sat on the ground holding the dog which was fighting the Gentle leader so much that he had bit his tongue and blood was flying all over. I held on to him and got the Gentle Leader off from him and he immediately began to settle down. I then got the harness off from him (he was too strong for it to be any good) then he sat quietly looking around as I placed a chain slip training collar (a choker to most of you) on him, hook on a six foot nylon leash and stood up.
This was simply a case of the wrong equipment on the wrong dog. A Gentle Leader is a great collar for most dogs, but from a behaviorist's perspective it is like all collars, it dominates the dog. Its method of domination is that it places pressure across the bridge of the nose and the nape of the neck, quite similar to the way a mother dog picks up its puppies wither mouth (her upper teeth taking the place of the collar on the nose and neck) which makes the puppy go limp. It dominates a grown dog in a similar way but when that grown dog is a type A dominate dog it can nearly drive them mad.
This Pit Bull became one of our best dogs in that training session. I mention here to emphasize that part of your responsibility as a trainer is to learn dog behaviorism and the various types of equipment. A train who had not learned such things would likely have continued to fight this dog until someone got hurt.
There are various methodologies of training for you to learn, with probably the most common based on the Kohler method as altered by positive reinforcement rewarding correct action of the dog. Another method is clicker training which is really a method of behavior modification (this can lead you on to studying such as Professor Skinner and behavior operands). You should also be familiar with commands exerted through equipment, through verbal signals, through hand signals, and through the use of whistles. It would also be helpful to have some experience of working with handicapped dogs such as those having three legs, those being deaf and even those which are blind.
Learning to teach (as well as becoming certified to doing the testing), for American Kennel Club (AKC) Canine Good Citizenship certificates is a good service to offer. As is teaching competitive obedience for AKC Obedience Trials, but both are focused on a smaller prospective client base.
Agility training is a more intensive commitment by both the dog handler as well as you the trainer. From a business perspective it is a significant equipment investment and is focused on a much smaller prospective client base.
Once you establish your training facility you'll also need to develop a client application and a contract which details exactly what you do and what is expected from the clients.You will also have to address having insurance liability and here it is best to use an insurance company familiar with this field. Also become very familiar with the vets in your area and you want at least one to be available for emergency calls during your class periods.
Your facility will have to fit the weather of your area. For example, if you have severe winters do you cease training for the winter or do you have an indoor facility. At the very least you'll need fencing. Dogs will get loose from their leashes and you don't want them running away, nor do you want feral dogs coming and mixing with the dogs you are training.You will also want capture sticks (long poles with rope loops) as a last resort to capture a dog. One other thing almost never discussed is that you'll want one or more break sticks. You never want to allow two dogs to fight (learning canine behaviorism is the best defense) but if you have ever attempted to separate to dogs (of any size) when one has a firm bite hold on the other a break stick is what you'll need to sick in that dog's mouth and pry it open. The best rule is to prepare for the worse but never allow it to happen.
I believe that it is also important to develop and include at the end of each class written home work.There will always be a challenge of getting some people to actually do the daily practicing and written homework removes the excuse of forgetting' what to do.
You will also have the challenge of the many different types of people attending your classes. You can be sure that some will be lazy. Some seemingly won't listen. And some, unbelievably will be seemingly be less intelligent than their dogs. There will also be times when you will have to explain to people that the new puppy they have brought to class is not the right one for their life style.
In a beginning obedience class you will also have class members who are handicapped. We've had people who are mentally challenged and others who have physical disabilities (including being in a wheelchair). All of these people are your students and your job isn't to make them trainers but to have them complete the class with a better relationship with their dog than when they enter the class.
There are also the other services, a boarding kennel, a grooming business, home calls for behavior problems, selling supplies, one acquaintance has start a doggie day care center to go with the training. Teaching students how to prepare and present their dogs for competitive conformation classes is another service.
No matter how much you love dogs and no matter how much you enjoy being a trainer, this is a business and you have to figure the best way to market your service in your area.Certainly you'll have a business card, but will you also have a brochure? How about a WEB site? Do you advertise in the newspaper or shoppers guide? Do you go around to different groups and do speeches and demonstrations.Do you volunteer to train youth in 4H or Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.
Like with any business, this is not something to just jump into but rather make careful plans.
