Thursday, December 23, 2010

Dog Training Career - How to Become a Dog Trainer

Do you love dogs? Do you like working with people? Do you have a lot of patience?

If you answer yes to all the questions, then a professional career in dog training can be tremendously rewarding for you.

However, at the same time, a career in dog training can also be very challenging and it is going to take you a great deal of time, patience and determination to become a successful dog trainer.

Therefore, let's first examine your motives and ask yourself a few questions before you go enroll yourself to become a dog trainer.

  • Do you love all dogs regardless of age, breed or temperament? Can you really work with them even if the dogs are behaving badly, stubborn and aggressive? Dog trainers must be kind and patient teachers since most dogs cannot be trained in a couple of minutes. Many hours of dedication and patience will be required to work with the animals to achieve the desired results.
  • Are you respectful and comfortable working with people? A dog trainer job is not just about training dogs. It is also about training people, specifically the dog owners themselves on how to handle their animals more effectively.
  • Are you willing to put in a lot of time and effort to become a successful dog trainer? In your dog training career, you will come across many different types of behavior problems with different breed of dogs therefore you will need to be committed to keep your dog training knowledge up-to-date by attending seminars, workshops and conferences. By understanding a wide variety of dog behavior, communication, conditioning, training techniques can help you become a well-qualified, knowledgeable and skilled dog trainer.

Let's say that you have decided that you are truly passionate about dogs and committed to make handling dogs a successful career, the next big question is how to do you start your dog training career?

A career in dog training can begin in a number of ways:

  • By volunteering at one of your local rescue centers or animal shelters, you can pick up lots of great hands-on and observational experience. Often dog shelters will also have some form of training program for their volunteers or you may also be assigned to help one of the trainers. As your experience progresses, you will be given more responsibilities to help out in the training.
  • While expensive and quite a time commitment, attending a professional dog training school or a K9 academy can give you a more formalized and complete education as a canine trainer. To get started, check with your local pet stores or veterinary hospitals for reference and recommendations.
  • You can also contact local breeders and dog trainers in your area and become an apprentice to take lessons from them directly. Alternatively, some guide dogs training centers offer apprenticeship programs for anyone interested in becoming instructors for the school.
  • Another way to start your dog training career is through self study. Read as many training books as possible and attend lots of seminars, workshops and conferences to learn about dog training and behavior modification. In addition, you may also want to volunteer to train your friends or neighbor's dogs to get some hands-on experience and improve your training skills with dogs.

While there are also some mail and internet correspondence courses that claim to "certify" you as a "professional" in the field of dog training and behavior, you would do well to avoid any of them. Most correspondence courses at most can only offer you basic information on dog handling skills and you probably will learn as much from reading books on dog training.

As you make the transition from trainee to dog trainer, you can start your professional career in dog training working full or part time.

According to a recent survey, there are approximately 63,000,000 owned dogs in the United States. And as more dogs take on active roles in security, law enforcement, rescue operations and human assistance projects, employment opportunities for dog trainers are expected to rise more than 15% through 2012 - that means more and more opportunities for dog trainers.

As a professional canine trainer, the income that you could earn can be attractive. The salaries for full-time dog trainers are around $150 or more per hour depending on experience, reputation and location - and for part-time trainers $15 to $20 per hour.

As mentioned before, a career in dog training can be extremely satisfying and rewarding. If you truly care about dogs and can work with both dogs and humans on a daily basis, then becoming a dog trainer would be an excellent and fulfilling career choice for you.

If you would like to have more information about a career in dog training and how to avoid the costly mistakes that 90% aspiring dog trainers will make, check out Dog Trainer Handbook by Sheily B - The premier pet dog trainer education guide and among the best resources for learning more about how to become a dog trainer.

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