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Choosing A Dog Trainer continued... |
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Trust your own instincts.
Do you like the person who is going to be your dog trainer?
You may well be spending a lot of time with this person over the coming months. Does the trainer inspire confidence and do they make you feel relaxed? Do they communicate easily with you, and make sure you understand each concept before moving on to other matters? If not, it's your duty to say “STOP!” and demand further explanation before proceeding.
Does your dog like the dog trainer?
A professional dog trainer will be training you and your dog, so you need to know that you are going to enjoy any time spent with them. This means your dog as well as you.
Dogs also have a wonderful instinct about people, and if your dog shows a fear, anxiety or clear dislike of the dog trainer, then this may make training harder in the future with that person.
A person can not become a good dog trainer or behaviourist through just reading books on the subject of dog training and canine behaviour. Success and results come through time, dedication and above all, experience. If a trainer does not seem completely natural and comfortable around your dog, regardless of your dog's behaviour, then this may well indicate a lack of experience with hands on training, and in such cases we would advise at least being open-minded about trying another dog trainer before moving into a full training program.
 Most importantly, trust your own human intuition about people.
Many good dog trainers become trusted and respected friends of their clients through the close working relationship and the common interest in curing your dog's behaviour problems, or achieving some dog training success with you and your dog.
You should feel comfortable, relaxed, respected and valued by a good private dog trainer, and you should feel absolutely confident that the person is going to help you and your dog.
Likeability factor is very important, and doesn't necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the trainer, your personalities may simply not match, but finding one who does get on well with you will make all the future dog training you do together much more fluent, enjoyable and most importantly, effective.
We will be publishing our own shortlist of private dog trainers some time soon, the ones we have heard good things about, or who we have worked with ourselves and consider them worthy of mention on our site.
Whilst we do offer dog training and behaviour services ourselves, we are currently very busy with current clients, so it is unlikely we will be able to take you on as a client in the near future. If you are looking for a good behaviourist or dog trainer in your area, contact us using our contact form and we will see if we know of any good ones local to you.
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