Colorado Dog Training

Posts Tagged ‘dog psychology’

We needed to make a decision quickly on how we were going to train Giles and my first move was to send him to one of the local dog training schools, some friends of ours had recommended a few  local  Colorado dog training schools and groups for new dog owners and that  dog training classes can be a great way to learn about dog psychology and to socialize a dogs with other dogs and humans. This seemed a great idea and would certainly give us an insight into training and how to work with Giles at home.

I can see how many first-time dog owners find it easier to learn from a weekly dog training class than from a book, video, or other resource because the dog’s learning relies less on the owner’s discipline and they can get help and ask questions from a professional dog trainer.

But I soon found a few things I hadn’t taken into consideration:

Cost:

When we were phoning around we found a variety of different training methods and found the prices jumped all over the place for different Colorado dog training groups

Group classes at the local community centers, dog day cares or pet stores would costing from $50 to $160 for hourly sessions for 4 to 8 weekly sessions.

Private classes with a trainer, which is the way we wanted to go at the time, which could be at our home or at the trainer’s place of business, usually cost from $30 to $100 per hour-long session — so about $240 to $600 for six sessions.

Dog obedience boarding schools usually cost from $950 to $2,500 or more for two to four weeks of board-and-train, where the dog lives at the trainer’s home or at a boarding kennel and receives hours of one-on-one attention daily but of course you never get to see your dog and they become obedient with that trainer and may behave totally different back in your hands.

Rewarding:

If we had chosen the private lessons, we would never have been there when Giles would have sat for the first time, rolled over, or wanted to shake your hand. Yes we would have seen results from him maybe not chewing on the couch, peeing in the carpet or jumping up and strangers and barking. But at the same time we wouldn’t understand the real reason as to how he was taught these techniques.

Schedule:

Although many of these courses were on weekends it was cheaper during the week but this never matched out schedule so we would of had to sign up on the weekends when many other dogs were in the class and Giles wouldn’t of received the full hour.