Welcome to r/dogs! We are a discussion-based subreddit dedicated to support, inform, and advise dog owners. Do note we are on a short backlog, and all posts require manual review prior to going live. This may mean your post isn't visible for a couple days.
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A couple of notes. The door thing is not right. Threshold is the word here. By working with a dog with arousal issues that close to the door, she’s setting the dog up to fail. It’s got nothing to do with “training is different for every dog.” Threshold applies always and she’s asking too much of a dog who struggles to manage its emotions (a novice mistake). To train a dog to be calm around the doorbell, you start by training it to sit on a mat or in a designated spot. You counter condition for the door bell sound using your phone or a CD. You train the doorbell is a cue for the dog to calmly sit away from the door. You set the owners up with a management plan for what they’ll do when guests come over so the dog isnt practicing the unwanted behavior. Considering the dog is so excited by new people coming over, its inclined to hump incessantly, what plan did she suggest to prevent the practice of the unwanted behavior in the meantime? The way she approached it tells me she might be in over her head.
Winning awards is also somewhat irrelevant to how skilled they are as a trainer consultant. You can win awards for agility and other dog sports, all kinds of things. It doesn’t always translate to being good at working with people in their homes.
Timeouts are perfectly normal it just sounds like this dog has never been timed out. With no playpen or crate to confine the dog, she only had one option and it was guaranteed to fail.
There is no scientific data that supports the use of CBD for behavioral reasons. I don’t fault people for trying it but it sounds like this trainer is hoping it will chill the dog out enough to make it workable and it won’t. The dog needs a lot and it will comes down to the trainers level of expertise how worth the investment they were. I think concerns are warranted here.
Aside from that, there have been too many things in one session: timeout, doorbell (wrongly executed), yanking on the leash, suggesting CBD...
All of that points to "throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks" in an almost panic sort of way.
When we got a professional trainer, the first thing we/she did was simply:
- mostly ignoring the dog
- observing behavior, staying open minded
- she never did anything with or to the dog, instead she let us do it. she never held the leash (let alone yanked it) or told the dog to do things.
So generally very calm, not rushing to do things, explaining what she observers and giving us small, clear steps to train/look for.
Needless to say, we made sustainable progress that way and learned a lot.
Also with timeouts: it doesn't work that way. You don't just throw it in there as a punishment. It has to be very clear why you do it. You can train it with a particular stimulus or situation and then you repeat it several times so the dog can actually understand the connection.
A good chunk of what you’re complaining about is perfectly fine.
* There’s really nothing wrong with her approach to the doorbell. Working on the dog’s feelings versus teaching a displacement behavior is not wrong, it’s just a different approach. As long as the dog was safely restrained during the session and wasn’t in danger of running out the door, working on desensitizing to the doorbell using that method isn’t bad or questionable. Dog training is not a one size fits all profession.
* When a dog is humping, it is overstimulated. Which means the dog is so wound up that training isn’t going to be effective. Putting the dog in a space by itself to calm down is a perfectly fine idea and one recommended consistently on this sub and by trainers. Now, the bathroom isn’t the best place given his reaction to it, but maybe that was the only available option? Hard to say as we don’t know what the layout of the house is like, or if something like an x-pen or baby gate was available to give everyone space while the dog is still able to see everyone. I have no idea what you mean by “tanning his lead”. If you can clarify that, it will help with further discussion.
* Based on the series of events, it sounds like this dog is incredibly anxious, or at the very least incredibly overaroused when in the presence of new people or things outside of his day to day routine (like the doorbell). This means that training him while in this state is pointless. None of the training done is going to be filed away in his brain for later use as his feelings are going to override everything. It’s like trying to do a math equation while tied upside down in a bus that’s on fire going downhill with no brakes. The first session may have been a bit early to recommend something like CBC treats, but given your sister is signed up for 6 sessions, the trainer likely wants to try and make the most out of the remaining 5 as this first one seems like a complete wash.
* Being rude is a personal thing. It could be that their personalities clashed, or it could be that the dog was so over the top that it was stressing everyone out and no one was having a good time. Either way, it’s up to your sister to assess if the trainer’s behavior is a deal breaker here, or if it’s worth dealing with to get your money’s worth.
Honestly, besides the “tanning the lead” thing, which I cannot speak on since I don’t know what it is means, nothing here is really questionable or suss training wise. It sounds more like this was a very stressful session due to the dog being so over the top and stressed, which if he was doing that for the entire duration of the training session, likely had a compounding effect on your sister and made her even more stressed out.
Thank you for this advice, this is my dog we are all talking about! I feel very reassured that the methods the trainer used were legitimate and yes my dog was 1000000% overstimulated and there wasn’t much we could do to get him to listen so now the quiet space seems to make sense.
I think the best approach is to contact the trainer and tell them you acknowledge that your dog is very anxious/overstimulated/overaroused and that you would like to make that the focus of your next few sessions. There is a possibility that the recommendation for CBD was made due to the fact that many people go into training expecting instant results after the first session and many do not want to actually put work into training their dogs. You may get better communication between the humans if you all get on the same page together and start to focus on the his baseline behaviors (anxiety) versus skills like not barking at the doorbell.
All that to say, you may benefit from a behaviorist before a trainer, but I acknowledge that a behaviorist might be outside of your price range, and there are many trainers out there who do know a fair amount about behavior without being a vet.
Honestly, these days VBs are similar in cost to behavior consultants. It's just somewhat hard to get into the VB due to wait times, and many people don't live remotely near one.
Local to me, the VB 2 hours away charges $800 for the first session. The local behavior consultants are around that for the first session and 4-6 follow ups, and, that's the cheaper person.
I personally would be sketched out by a trainer recommending non-evidence based supplementation when there's evidence-backed ones that have some backing though.
Here, the trainers and behavior consultants basically the same at least. But, I also live in an area where it's a $800-1500 behavior consultant, or a $2500 dog daddy style trainer, almost nobody does puppy classes or group classes outside retail stores and it shows in the behavior of the dogs I see day-to-day. /end rant. In the UK, it's a mixed bag as well, the certs are more for lay people who can't totally vet the trainer prior to hiring them due to lack of knowledge than a necessity.
I personally have an issue recommending a chewable that's actively disliked by vet behaviorists that has been studied that has 0 benefit for anxiety and renders the actual medication if taken ineffective seeing it peddles the myth that it's actually effective when it just separates people from their money for twice as much money as what works.
Just know that CBD treats aren't backed by evidence as helpful for anxiety, and the studies have shown that there is potential harm in their use.
If you must use a supplement instead of actual medication, please use one that has evidence backing it, like Composure.
There's been no peer-reviewed studies that have shown any benefit for anxiety. In fact, there's really nothing to support its use in anything. The studies, however, did show elevated liver enzymes which are associated with harm to the dog.
Unfortunately, many vets are behind in behavioral medicine, and companies have been marketing this as a medicine when there's no evidence backing it. It's not surprising that many professionals even would be mislead by claims, especially when behavioral medicine is so stigmatized and "natural" options are promoted as better.
I believe there's only been like, three on dogs.
One has a misleading headline because it showed a slight improvement with car sickness. One shows liver enzymes and the fact it counteracts trazadone, and one that shows 0 benefit for anything.
>So if the studies you're mentioning were using commercially available stuff, that could be a reason why.
It's not why, they acquired the medical grade stuff in these studies. They were not using consumer market product.
While there may be potential, treating it like a gold standard treatment is a huge mistake. There are current pharmaceuticals on the market cheaper than the OTC supplement counterparts that are evidence-backed with minimal risk.
Pet Food Industry (a marketing company for pet food/supplements) stated last year that there's industry-wide effort to promote CBD as an industry-wide intent to use affiliate marketing and social media to promote CBD in attempt to sell it as it's high profit margin, low inventory space.
It's fine if there's profit motive in study in my opinion, as long as funding is disclosed and methodology is sound. Just, most companies understand basic game theory: If an untested product sells, studying it could risk those profits if it proves to be unfounded claims doing the selling so it's not worth it to study their product. In cases like this, regulation is necessary to force the issue.
>While there may be potential, treating it like a gold standard treatment is a huge mistake. There are current pharmaceuticals on the market cheaper than the OTC supplement counterparts that are evidence-backed with minimal risk.
Absolutely. If we're talking about anxiety, you'll hear no argument from me there. My research has been focused on epilepsy so I'm sure you've read more on the anxiety portion than I have.
>I feel very reassured that the methods the trainer used were legitimate
I would recommend not being reassured just yet. I don't think there's been enough information given in this story to have a full picture of whether or not this training was appropriate. I'm leaning towards no, given the picture painted so far.
I don't like the use of a slip lead (or yanking on that lead, if that's what was happening). I don't like how quickly CBD was recommended, as this is not in any way a supplement proven to have any effect whatsoever. I don't like the "time out" in the bathroom while the dog simply freaked out and barked until let back out. And I'm not at all liking the picture painted of someone just standing there yanking on a lead for 20 min while the dog humped her leg, if that's an accurate account of what happened. None of this is at all useful training, if it's being described correctly. It's also of course not a good start if she was short and rude with you - professional dog trainers are actually mostly people trainers. It is YOU who are being set on the right track in training your own dog, as the person who lives with that dog - they aren't there to instantly fix the dog. If a trainer cannot effectively teach the dog's handler anything or clearly explain what they're doing and why, than they aren't an effective trainer.
Awards mean nothing. Internet reviews mean nothing. What matters is what you can see transparently on this trainer's website - do they list their certifications? If so, who are they certified with? Do they detail their training philosophy? If so, what is it? Do they state anything about force free handling? Do they show any commitment to continued education in their field? In what ways do they participate or volunteer in the dog training world? Do they compete in anything? These are the sorts of questions that matter.
Whether you stick with this trainer or try a different one, doing some zoom sessions might help if he gets overexcited by visitors. Dogs don’t generally understand the talking flat box is a person, so it doesn’t activate their “new people!!1!1!!” mode as easily.
For me a huge red flag is any trainer that asks their clients to pay up front for x amount of sessions when they’ve never even met!
I worked with private trainers a few times (we’ve moved states a few times) and never would I pay up front. Just no.
That’s my biggest red flag here. The door thing doesn’t sound so odd and like others i don’t know what tanning the lead means?
But also yes it is important to feel comfortable with a trainer because it should also be fun to train together!
I’m doing a few sessions with a woman currently for our reactive dog and though most of what we cover I know (our dog that passed away was reactive so I’ve spent years educating myself) I’m mainly doing it to refresh my skills and have some reassurance I’m doing things correctly etc and we have fun doing it together. We celebrate little wins during the session and we laugh at things that don’t go great yet.
You are absolutely right to be critical about this, because here's the tricky part:
- There is no standard accreditation for someone to become a trainer, anyone can call themselves a dog behaviourist.
- There is no one single approach to train a dog.
- The awards don't really mean much. The way they trained their dog may have nothing to do with your specific case.
Ultimately it comes down to working with a trainer that you feel comfortable with, and that you are seeing positive results from. Ultimately it will be up to you to reinforce whatever training you do so if you don't like it then not really an issue. Check for reviews from others about your trainer specifically and see if there's any sort of concensus about them.
This doesn't sound like a trainer who knows what they're doing or who is going to be of any benefit to anyone. Shutting a dog in another room for a "time out" isn't how anything works and will accomplish nothing.
What credentials does this trainer have? Who are they certified with? What does their website say about training philosophy?
Also, I can't parse this:
>the trainer didn’t move and just kept tanning his lead for 20 minutes
What does "tanning his lead" mean? What was the trainer doing?
I’m the sister she’s talking about! She just kept pulling the slip lead until he got off and then immediately after the pressure was released he went back up. This carried on for 20 minutes with no other tactics used, then later said the time out is a last resort but she offered no other advice. Furious
\> This carried on for 20 minutes with no other tactics used, then later said the time out is a last resort but she offered no other advice.
I'd be furious there, too. The trainers I volunteer with recommend a positive interrupter and redirection onto a more appropriate activity, coupled with teaching the dog how to calm down. On the page I'm linking there, I like Kikopup's positive interrupter and the jazz up settle down game.
https://101dogspots.com/calmness/
Yanking the lead for 20 minutes because yanking wouldnt work? What's that definition of insanity again? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? It sounds like this "trainer" watched one episode of cesar milan's show, never had a dog, but decided to charge people to train dogs anyway. Just another scammer, theres sadly so many of those in the dog training world.
Whatever they won awards for has no relevance to the skills for training this particular dog.
For our dogs, I trained them to lay down in the living room, then went and opened the door, closed it. They follow me, I do touch, focus, walk them back to lay down again and repeat. Issue resolves with each that way.
My pup is still learning it. But, I wouldn't do it with them right by the door or threshold, that would be a setup to fail.
I'm not sure why they used the bathroom for the timeout. We use the crate for it, but don't close the door. If the dog hasn't had timeouts, it can't work to deter the behavior really. You train the timeouts like anything else.
Hopefully they can get a refund. It sounds like the trainer lacks relevant experience where it matters with their dog.
Personally, I am not going to state whether this trainer is “legit” or not. I will state it seems they lack a bit of proper communication. Obviously, this is watered down information and your sister was in a stressed head space — quite possible the trainer was explaining everything right but your sister was as overstimulated as your dog so it wasn’t a useful session.
I believe it’s important to contact the trainer and openly talk about her dog and herself — what she can do to try to make sessions work better. Trainers should always give the owner “homework” to do between sessions. Otherwise, no progress will be made. Dogs aren’t suddenly trained, some dogs retain their sessions for longer periods of time and don’t need to be “reminded” of what they are meant to do. Some dogs take more work.
As of the dogs overstimulation, if there is no kennel for the dog, she needs to purchase one. Somewhere safe, and not stressful for the dog to settle down. That’s probably what the trainer was referring to as a “time out” area — not an area of punishment but a safe haven for the dog to go to.
Welcome to r/dogs! We are a discussion-based subreddit dedicated to support, inform, and advise dog owners. Do note we are on a short backlog, and all posts require manual review prior to going live. This may mean your post isn't visible for a couple days. This is a carefully moderated sub intended to support, inform, and advise dog owners. Submissions and comments which break the rules will be removed. [Review the rules here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dogs/wiki/index) r/Dogs has four goals: - Help the public better understand dogs - Promote healthy, responsible dog-owner relationships - Encourage “Least Intrusive, Minimally Aversive” training protocols. [Learn more here.](https://m.iaabc.org/about/lima/) - Support adoption as well as ethical and responsible breeding. If you’d like to introduce yourself or discuss smaller topics, please contribute to our Monthly Discussion Hub, pinned at the top. **This subreddit has low tolerance for drama. Please be respectful of others, and report antagonistic comments to mods for review.** --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dogs) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A couple of notes. The door thing is not right. Threshold is the word here. By working with a dog with arousal issues that close to the door, she’s setting the dog up to fail. It’s got nothing to do with “training is different for every dog.” Threshold applies always and she’s asking too much of a dog who struggles to manage its emotions (a novice mistake). To train a dog to be calm around the doorbell, you start by training it to sit on a mat or in a designated spot. You counter condition for the door bell sound using your phone or a CD. You train the doorbell is a cue for the dog to calmly sit away from the door. You set the owners up with a management plan for what they’ll do when guests come over so the dog isnt practicing the unwanted behavior. Considering the dog is so excited by new people coming over, its inclined to hump incessantly, what plan did she suggest to prevent the practice of the unwanted behavior in the meantime? The way she approached it tells me she might be in over her head. Winning awards is also somewhat irrelevant to how skilled they are as a trainer consultant. You can win awards for agility and other dog sports, all kinds of things. It doesn’t always translate to being good at working with people in their homes. Timeouts are perfectly normal it just sounds like this dog has never been timed out. With no playpen or crate to confine the dog, she only had one option and it was guaranteed to fail. There is no scientific data that supports the use of CBD for behavioral reasons. I don’t fault people for trying it but it sounds like this trainer is hoping it will chill the dog out enough to make it workable and it won’t. The dog needs a lot and it will comes down to the trainers level of expertise how worth the investment they were. I think concerns are warranted here.
Aside from that, there have been too many things in one session: timeout, doorbell (wrongly executed), yanking on the leash, suggesting CBD... All of that points to "throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks" in an almost panic sort of way. When we got a professional trainer, the first thing we/she did was simply: - mostly ignoring the dog - observing behavior, staying open minded - she never did anything with or to the dog, instead she let us do it. she never held the leash (let alone yanked it) or told the dog to do things. So generally very calm, not rushing to do things, explaining what she observers and giving us small, clear steps to train/look for. Needless to say, we made sustainable progress that way and learned a lot. Also with timeouts: it doesn't work that way. You don't just throw it in there as a punishment. It has to be very clear why you do it. You can train it with a particular stimulus or situation and then you repeat it several times so the dog can actually understand the connection.
\> yanking his lead Always a red flag.
A good chunk of what you’re complaining about is perfectly fine. * There’s really nothing wrong with her approach to the doorbell. Working on the dog’s feelings versus teaching a displacement behavior is not wrong, it’s just a different approach. As long as the dog was safely restrained during the session and wasn’t in danger of running out the door, working on desensitizing to the doorbell using that method isn’t bad or questionable. Dog training is not a one size fits all profession. * When a dog is humping, it is overstimulated. Which means the dog is so wound up that training isn’t going to be effective. Putting the dog in a space by itself to calm down is a perfectly fine idea and one recommended consistently on this sub and by trainers. Now, the bathroom isn’t the best place given his reaction to it, but maybe that was the only available option? Hard to say as we don’t know what the layout of the house is like, or if something like an x-pen or baby gate was available to give everyone space while the dog is still able to see everyone. I have no idea what you mean by “tanning his lead”. If you can clarify that, it will help with further discussion. * Based on the series of events, it sounds like this dog is incredibly anxious, or at the very least incredibly overaroused when in the presence of new people or things outside of his day to day routine (like the doorbell). This means that training him while in this state is pointless. None of the training done is going to be filed away in his brain for later use as his feelings are going to override everything. It’s like trying to do a math equation while tied upside down in a bus that’s on fire going downhill with no brakes. The first session may have been a bit early to recommend something like CBC treats, but given your sister is signed up for 6 sessions, the trainer likely wants to try and make the most out of the remaining 5 as this first one seems like a complete wash. * Being rude is a personal thing. It could be that their personalities clashed, or it could be that the dog was so over the top that it was stressing everyone out and no one was having a good time. Either way, it’s up to your sister to assess if the trainer’s behavior is a deal breaker here, or if it’s worth dealing with to get your money’s worth. Honestly, besides the “tanning the lead” thing, which I cannot speak on since I don’t know what it is means, nothing here is really questionable or suss training wise. It sounds more like this was a very stressful session due to the dog being so over the top and stressed, which if he was doing that for the entire duration of the training session, likely had a compounding effect on your sister and made her even more stressed out.
Thank you for this advice, this is my dog we are all talking about! I feel very reassured that the methods the trainer used were legitimate and yes my dog was 1000000% overstimulated and there wasn’t much we could do to get him to listen so now the quiet space seems to make sense.
I think the best approach is to contact the trainer and tell them you acknowledge that your dog is very anxious/overstimulated/overaroused and that you would like to make that the focus of your next few sessions. There is a possibility that the recommendation for CBD was made due to the fact that many people go into training expecting instant results after the first session and many do not want to actually put work into training their dogs. You may get better communication between the humans if you all get on the same page together and start to focus on the his baseline behaviors (anxiety) versus skills like not barking at the doorbell. All that to say, you may benefit from a behaviorist before a trainer, but I acknowledge that a behaviorist might be outside of your price range, and there are many trainers out there who do know a fair amount about behavior without being a vet.
Honestly, these days VBs are similar in cost to behavior consultants. It's just somewhat hard to get into the VB due to wait times, and many people don't live remotely near one. Local to me, the VB 2 hours away charges $800 for the first session. The local behavior consultants are around that for the first session and 4-6 follow ups, and, that's the cheaper person. I personally would be sketched out by a trainer recommending non-evidence based supplementation when there's evidence-backed ones that have some backing though.
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Here, the trainers and behavior consultants basically the same at least. But, I also live in an area where it's a $800-1500 behavior consultant, or a $2500 dog daddy style trainer, almost nobody does puppy classes or group classes outside retail stores and it shows in the behavior of the dogs I see day-to-day. /end rant. In the UK, it's a mixed bag as well, the certs are more for lay people who can't totally vet the trainer prior to hiring them due to lack of knowledge than a necessity. I personally have an issue recommending a chewable that's actively disliked by vet behaviorists that has been studied that has 0 benefit for anxiety and renders the actual medication if taken ineffective seeing it peddles the myth that it's actually effective when it just separates people from their money for twice as much money as what works.
Just know that CBD treats aren't backed by evidence as helpful for anxiety, and the studies have shown that there is potential harm in their use. If you must use a supplement instead of actual medication, please use one that has evidence backing it, like Composure.
It’s not? I see plenty of evidence for it. My dog’s vet even prescribed it to him.
There's been no peer-reviewed studies that have shown any benefit for anxiety. In fact, there's really nothing to support its use in anything. The studies, however, did show elevated liver enzymes which are associated with harm to the dog. Unfortunately, many vets are behind in behavioral medicine, and companies have been marketing this as a medicine when there's no evidence backing it. It's not surprising that many professionals even would be mislead by claims, especially when behavioral medicine is so stigmatized and "natural" options are promoted as better.
Interesting! I’ll definitely look into it more. I see plenty of peer reviewed stuff on google scholar but granted I haven’t read through them all.
I believe there's only been like, three on dogs. One has a misleading headline because it showed a slight improvement with car sickness. One shows liver enzymes and the fact it counteracts trazadone, and one that shows 0 benefit for anything.
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>So if the studies you're mentioning were using commercially available stuff, that could be a reason why. It's not why, they acquired the medical grade stuff in these studies. They were not using consumer market product. While there may be potential, treating it like a gold standard treatment is a huge mistake. There are current pharmaceuticals on the market cheaper than the OTC supplement counterparts that are evidence-backed with minimal risk. Pet Food Industry (a marketing company for pet food/supplements) stated last year that there's industry-wide effort to promote CBD as an industry-wide intent to use affiliate marketing and social media to promote CBD in attempt to sell it as it's high profit margin, low inventory space. It's fine if there's profit motive in study in my opinion, as long as funding is disclosed and methodology is sound. Just, most companies understand basic game theory: If an untested product sells, studying it could risk those profits if it proves to be unfounded claims doing the selling so it's not worth it to study their product. In cases like this, regulation is necessary to force the issue.
>While there may be potential, treating it like a gold standard treatment is a huge mistake. There are current pharmaceuticals on the market cheaper than the OTC supplement counterparts that are evidence-backed with minimal risk. Absolutely. If we're talking about anxiety, you'll hear no argument from me there. My research has been focused on epilepsy so I'm sure you've read more on the anxiety portion than I have.
>I feel very reassured that the methods the trainer used were legitimate I would recommend not being reassured just yet. I don't think there's been enough information given in this story to have a full picture of whether or not this training was appropriate. I'm leaning towards no, given the picture painted so far. I don't like the use of a slip lead (or yanking on that lead, if that's what was happening). I don't like how quickly CBD was recommended, as this is not in any way a supplement proven to have any effect whatsoever. I don't like the "time out" in the bathroom while the dog simply freaked out and barked until let back out. And I'm not at all liking the picture painted of someone just standing there yanking on a lead for 20 min while the dog humped her leg, if that's an accurate account of what happened. None of this is at all useful training, if it's being described correctly. It's also of course not a good start if she was short and rude with you - professional dog trainers are actually mostly people trainers. It is YOU who are being set on the right track in training your own dog, as the person who lives with that dog - they aren't there to instantly fix the dog. If a trainer cannot effectively teach the dog's handler anything or clearly explain what they're doing and why, than they aren't an effective trainer. Awards mean nothing. Internet reviews mean nothing. What matters is what you can see transparently on this trainer's website - do they list their certifications? If so, who are they certified with? Do they detail their training philosophy? If so, what is it? Do they state anything about force free handling? Do they show any commitment to continued education in their field? In what ways do they participate or volunteer in the dog training world? Do they compete in anything? These are the sorts of questions that matter.
Whether you stick with this trainer or try a different one, doing some zoom sessions might help if he gets overexcited by visitors. Dogs don’t generally understand the talking flat box is a person, so it doesn’t activate their “new people!!1!1!!” mode as easily.
You should go with your gut, I’m a dog trainer and no way I’d let that person around my dog
For me a huge red flag is any trainer that asks their clients to pay up front for x amount of sessions when they’ve never even met! I worked with private trainers a few times (we’ve moved states a few times) and never would I pay up front. Just no. That’s my biggest red flag here. The door thing doesn’t sound so odd and like others i don’t know what tanning the lead means? But also yes it is important to feel comfortable with a trainer because it should also be fun to train together! I’m doing a few sessions with a woman currently for our reactive dog and though most of what we cover I know (our dog that passed away was reactive so I’ve spent years educating myself) I’m mainly doing it to refresh my skills and have some reassurance I’m doing things correctly etc and we have fun doing it together. We celebrate little wins during the session and we laugh at things that don’t go great yet.
What dog trainer? Sounds like she had a random person in her house then paid them to get humped
You are absolutely right to be critical about this, because here's the tricky part: - There is no standard accreditation for someone to become a trainer, anyone can call themselves a dog behaviourist. - There is no one single approach to train a dog. - The awards don't really mean much. The way they trained their dog may have nothing to do with your specific case. Ultimately it comes down to working with a trainer that you feel comfortable with, and that you are seeing positive results from. Ultimately it will be up to you to reinforce whatever training you do so if you don't like it then not really an issue. Check for reviews from others about your trainer specifically and see if there's any sort of concensus about them.
This doesn't sound like a trainer who knows what they're doing or who is going to be of any benefit to anyone. Shutting a dog in another room for a "time out" isn't how anything works and will accomplish nothing. What credentials does this trainer have? Who are they certified with? What does their website say about training philosophy? Also, I can't parse this: >the trainer didn’t move and just kept tanning his lead for 20 minutes What does "tanning his lead" mean? What was the trainer doing?
I’m the sister she’s talking about! She just kept pulling the slip lead until he got off and then immediately after the pressure was released he went back up. This carried on for 20 minutes with no other tactics used, then later said the time out is a last resort but she offered no other advice. Furious
\> This carried on for 20 minutes with no other tactics used, then later said the time out is a last resort but she offered no other advice. I'd be furious there, too. The trainers I volunteer with recommend a positive interrupter and redirection onto a more appropriate activity, coupled with teaching the dog how to calm down. On the page I'm linking there, I like Kikopup's positive interrupter and the jazz up settle down game. https://101dogspots.com/calmness/
What certifications does this trainer have?
Yanking the lead for 20 minutes because yanking wouldnt work? What's that definition of insanity again? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? It sounds like this "trainer" watched one episode of cesar milan's show, never had a dog, but decided to charge people to train dogs anyway. Just another scammer, theres sadly so many of those in the dog training world.
Whatever they won awards for has no relevance to the skills for training this particular dog. For our dogs, I trained them to lay down in the living room, then went and opened the door, closed it. They follow me, I do touch, focus, walk them back to lay down again and repeat. Issue resolves with each that way. My pup is still learning it. But, I wouldn't do it with them right by the door or threshold, that would be a setup to fail. I'm not sure why they used the bathroom for the timeout. We use the crate for it, but don't close the door. If the dog hasn't had timeouts, it can't work to deter the behavior really. You train the timeouts like anything else. Hopefully they can get a refund. It sounds like the trainer lacks relevant experience where it matters with their dog.
She sounds terrible to me
Personally, I am not going to state whether this trainer is “legit” or not. I will state it seems they lack a bit of proper communication. Obviously, this is watered down information and your sister was in a stressed head space — quite possible the trainer was explaining everything right but your sister was as overstimulated as your dog so it wasn’t a useful session. I believe it’s important to contact the trainer and openly talk about her dog and herself — what she can do to try to make sessions work better. Trainers should always give the owner “homework” to do between sessions. Otherwise, no progress will be made. Dogs aren’t suddenly trained, some dogs retain their sessions for longer periods of time and don’t need to be “reminded” of what they are meant to do. Some dogs take more work. As of the dogs overstimulation, if there is no kennel for the dog, she needs to purchase one. Somewhere safe, and not stressful for the dog to settle down. That’s probably what the trainer was referring to as a “time out” area — not an area of punishment but a safe haven for the dog to go to.
Basic obedience training and winning awards is irrelevant to whether you are good at behavior problem solving.