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Anyone can print up some business cards and claim to be a dog trainer, but most respected trainers have some sort of relevant educational background or extensive personal experience before they start teaching. Dog trainers acquire their skills and knowledge in many different ways, from on-the-job training to formal education. Lots of dog trainers get started by training their own dogs for obedience trials or other dog sports and then move on to teaching other people’s dogs. For the person who wants to make dog training a career, however, a more standardized educational route may be the way to go. Much more is known today about dog behavior than in the past, so an education in psychology and behavior is useful for dealing with and communicating concepts to dogs and their people.

Canine fitness trainer Gail Miller Bisher, owner of Super Fit Fido Club, puts a Dachshund through a workout course. Bisher helps couch-potato dogs and owners get into shape.

Service-Dog Trainers

Service dogs help people who have physical or emotional disabilities, enabling these people to get around and live more easily on their own. The dogs include guide dogs for people with visual impairments, assistance dogs for those with physical limitations, hearing dogs, and psychiatric service dogs.

A service-dog trainer must first teach skills to the dog and then teach owner and dog to work together. “A service-dog trainer needs to be patient and organized, with good communication skills and the ability to think creatively, critically, and objectively,” says Nancy Fierer, director of Susquehanna Service Dogs in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “It really helps to be able to take information from one area of life or study and apply it to training. The person has to love people and animals and learning. Flexibility is also important. The trainer always needs to keep looking for better ways to train.”

Before they can qualify to teach teams, service-dog trainers may need to complete a two- to three-year program that teaches them how to train the dogs and how to work with people of differing abilities. “Our training methods are very specific,” Fierer says. “Most trainers will not be able to work in our program without extensive training. Good positive experience is important, too, either with dogs or people with disabilities.”

The actual training of a service dog usually takes approximately six months after the dogs are returned as adults by their puppy raisers—the people who care for them, socialize them, and teach them basic manners until they are old enough to begin the training needed to become service dogs. Beyond actually teaching the dog, trainers are generally expected to care for the dog. Sometimes the dogs also live with their trainers (sometimes they live in a kennel situation). Filling out paperwork related to applications for service dogs is another facet of the job.

There are a limited number of openings for service-dog trainers at organizations. Some trainers volunteer with a service-dog organization before being accepted into the training program.

Whether they have high-school diplomas or college degrees, dog trainers can achieve certification through organizations such as the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and the National Association of Dog Obedience Instructors. Accreditation isn’t necessary, but it adds an element of credibility.