Do you have a knack for getting dogs to do what you want them to do? Have you taught tricks to all of the neighborhood dogs? Do you enjoy trying to figure out why dogs do the things they do? If you like to teach and you love dogs, you might have a career as a dog trainer in your future.
For as long as people and dogs have been together, they have been learning from each other. After all, dogs teach us just as much as we teach them. But not everyone has a knack for communicating with or understanding dogs—that’s where trainers come in. Their job isn’t so much teaching dogs as it is teaching people how to work with their dogs.
What Trainers Do
Training dogs isn’t a career for the person who wants the security, predictable hours, and benefits of a 9-to-5 job. Dog trainers often work nights and weekends, because that’s when dog owners have time to attend classes. Unless a trainer has a steady job with, say, a service-dog organization, a police department, or a government agency, he or she must work hard to build and keep a steady clientele.
Dog training is not limited to teaching manners to companion dogs. Training is one of those careers that offers many different paths, depending on an individual’s interests and abilities. In addition to showing owners how to teach their dogs to sit, stay, and come, people with training skills may find careers teaching service dogs to help people with disabilities; teaching detection dogs to sniff out drugs, explosives, or evidence of arson; or working with search dogs as they learn to rescue people who are missing or trapped in the aftermath of a disaster, such as an earthquake, avalanche, or building collapse (see chapters 28 and 29 on working-dog handlers). A rare few train dogs to star on stage and screen or to perform amazing feats at theme parks or other performance venues.
For the most part, dog trainers are self-employed. Some work for dog-training businesses, teaching puppy kindergarten, basic obedience, therapy-dog skills, and dog sports such as agility and flyball. Others are employed by or contracted with veterinarians, animal shelters, pet-supply stores, or township recreation departments.
Who Trainers Are
What kind of people become trainers? What personality traits must they have? No matter what kind of training you do, an understanding of dogs is essential. Good trainers have insight into canine behavior and the ability to bring out the best in each dog they work with. A good trainer is patient. Training a dog means working with the dog and building or modifying behaviors in small steps over a period of days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years. Training is much more complicated than “showing the dog who’s boss.”
Trainer Joel Silverman works with a dog rescued by the Mission Viejo Animal Services Center in California. Silverman wrote Take 2: Training Solutions for Rescued Dogs (Kennel Club Books, 2010).
LEARN, LISTEN, AND RESPOND
The late Job Michael Evans, author of Training and Explaining: How to Be the Dog Trainer You Want to Be (Howell Book House, 1995) and many other dog training books, gave journalist Gina Spadafori some training advice. “He said two things helped him the most with his dog training: dancing lessons and acting lessons,” Spadafori says. “He told me that timing and drama are everything in giving a correction and that learning to dance and act helped him with timing and putting on a show that let a dog know he was gosh-darn serious without having to pull out the big guns of serious consequences.” In the same vein, actor Alan Alda leads improvisational acting workshops for scientists to help them express themselves more clearly. Take a cue from Evans and Alda—learn how to communicate verbally and physically, listen better, be more responsive, and take changes in stride.
Good people skills are important, too. A trainer must be able to work with, teach, and motivate people of all ages and skill levels. That entails good listening skills as well as the aforementioned patience. Other characteristics of good trainers are time-management skills and problem-solving abilities. When the usual methods just don’t work with a particular dog (or person), a trainer must be able to come up with alternative ways of reaching the training goal.
Dog trainers should be physically fit. They spend a lot of time on their feet, walking around at classes, helping individual clients. Taking a dog through an agility course involves jogging or running. Teaching big dogs not to pull or jump up on people requires physical strength. That said, training is more about brain power than brute force, so being small is not a disadvantage.
A career as a dog trainer has many challenges. It’s satisfying to help people live long, trouble-free lives with their dogs, but it can be frustrating not to be able to succeed in every case. “The worst is not being able to reach a dog owner and knowing that the dog will continue to suffer as a result,” says Pennsylvania dog trainer and behavior consultant Susan Bulanda.
A Trainer’s Day
Depending on the type of training being done, a trainer’s day can range from routine to ever changing. For a companion-dog trainer such as Kim Toepfer of Fresno, California, no two days are alike.
“My days vary a great deal, which I enjoy,” she says. “I have a few dogs that I work with while their owners are at work. I pick up the dog from the home and take him to a park or public place to work on behavior problems or just polish his training. I usually have a private client or two, and then teach a class in the evening. Lately, I have begun to do a lot more work online, developing Web sites for other trainers, plus a little bit of freelance writing. I try to fit that into my spare time.”
Some trainers teach obedience classes at local veterinary clinics. That’s how Toepfer got her start as a trainer. Other trainers offer pet manners or obedience classes through community colleges or community recreation programs, and house-call services have grown increasingly popular with dog owners who appreciate the quicker results achieved through intensive one-on-one training. Home visits allow a trainer to customize programs to the specific needs of an owner and his or her dog. Some dog-training businesses make sixty or more house calls per week.
Other trainers prepare dogs for work in movies, theater, or television, either on the side or as a full-time business. In Houston, Jim Burwell has trained dogs for local TV commercials, news shows, and theater productions. New York dog trainer William Berloni (pictured on page 57 with canine performer PI) specializes in theatrical animals. His canine students have appeared in Broadway shows, in ballets, in movies, and on TV.
Trainers who work with animal actors must be well versed in animal welfare requirements, public health regulations, and liability insurance, as well as experienced in obtaining permits and certifications. They must also know what filmmakers want. Generally, that means dogs with good looks, such as Golden Retrievers; dogs with loads of personality, such as Jack Russell Terriers; or scruffy mixed breeds with unusual coloring and attitude to spare.
DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?
TRAINER
A dog trainer should have these characteristics:
A knack for working with dogs
Patience
