5 Signs It's Time to Hire a Professional Dog Trainer
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Welcome to the Wag Out Loud pawdcast, where we are obsessed with bringing you helpful tips on canine health care, nutrition, and overall wellbeing. If you'd like to support the show, check out the amazing online events, products and resources that I personally recommend on the Wag Out Loud website. I'm your host, Krista and I'm super excited to be bringing you yet another tail wagging episode.
Louie Torres is the founder of Unleashed Consulting Co, the world's leading marketing & consulting experts in the pet service industry & co-owner of Obedient K9 Training, a premier dog training business with locations in Charlotte, NC and Virginia Beach, VA.
After witnessing how professional dog training transformed his fearful-aggressive Chihuahua, Alfie, Louie knew he needed to help spread the word so that more people & pups could learn to live harmoniously with trust, love, and obedience!
Welcome dog lovers to another Wag Out Loud pawdcast episode. I am so thrilled to be joined by Louie Torres. He is going to share with us the five signs, it's time to hire a professional dog trainer. So Louie, first of all, thank you so much for being on the Show. I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself and tell us how Professional Dog Training has changed your life.
Absolutely. Krista, thank you so much for having me on the pawdcast. I love what you do, love your audience, love your episodes. So first off, I'm super grateful to be here. For those of you who have never heard of me before. Thanks for tuning in. My name is Louie Torres, I'm the founder of Unleashed Consulting Company. We are a leader in the marketing and consulting space for the pet services industry. I'm also the co owner of Obedient K9 Training, a dog training business with locations in Charlotte, North Carolina and Virginia Beach, Virginia. So it all started about four years ago, when I had been moved in with my girlfriend. And she had a fearful, aggressive Chihuahua named Alfie. Probably not the first time we've heard of a fearful, aggressive Chihuahua. But it was a definitely a transition for all parties involved, including Alfie. And I had not grown up with any fearful, aggressive dogs. So a lot of the behaviors that we were living with and kind of adapted to in our lifestyle were new to me. iI was a challenge, there were times where Alfie and I didn't see eye to eye there's times when Michelle and I didn't see eye to eye. And we knew that if we were going to make our relationship work, I had to make the relationship work with the dog. So instead of, you know, sending Alfie back to live with her mother back in New York, which was an option. We made it work, we sought Professional Dog Training, help and it was life changing. It was just so eye opening, you know how we can communicate with these animals and just live harmoniously with them with the right understanding of how to do it. And next thing you know, I found myself bringing all that advice in to my family and friends and their relationships. And that's when I realized that I wasn't the only one dealing with this. In fact, most people are dealing with a situation like this .And fast forward to today, I get to help other business owners and I get to help my community here in Charlotte with the same situation.
Very cool. Well, in your mind, do you think that all dogs need help from a professional trainer? Because you see, you know, videos and books? Can we do it ourselves? Or do you really think we need to bring the professionals in?
I think that every situation is different. And that's a great question. And that was one of my, one of my five signs. Spoiler alert, spoiler alert, but uh, no, I definitely do think that, you know, it depends on your situation, how much time you're able to commit, it depends on your dog’s situation, how much time you're able to commit to your dog. And I think professional help is definitely going to help you expedite the process. And you're going to learn things that you wouldn't necessarily be able to do on your own. For example, in the dog training process, timing is key. And sometimes you're not able to see your own timing, even when you're recording yourself. So just having another set of eyes, they can see your timing with your dog, when you're learning how to however, your communication method is, that's really important for someone else to see. Now, for me, I've really invested into I really got an invested into my training program. And if you find someone to do it with you once, and you understand what your communication program and process is going to be with your dog, the cool thing is when you do hire someone, you don't need to hire them again. Because if you have a good trainer, they're not really going to spend so much time training the dog as they will training the human. And that's information and education that you can take with you for all the dogs that you have in the future. So yes, you, you can do it, you can go to YouTube, you can go to these apps, and you can follow trainers. But it really depends on the severity of the issues that you're dealing with, and also how much time you can truly commit to learning the craft.
Alright. And I would have to assume that we shouldn't beat ourselves up if we do need to find a professional. That it's not really a reflection of our failure, if we can't get our dogs to act or behave a certain way. So why don't we go right into your five signs that it is time to hire a professional?
5 Signs It's Time to Hire a Professional Dog Trainer
Absolutely, it's not your fault, if you don't have the right information. And most of us just don't. But hopefully, after listening to this podcast, you can make that decision if it is time for you to make that decision. So let's start with these are in no particular order, right. But for me, personally, number one, impacting your relationships. And it doesn't have to be just with your significant other, it can be with family, it can be with friends, right? So let's say you're someone that likes to host and you just got a rescue and now your friends are really hesitant about coming over because your rescue may growl. Or maybe it resource guards. Or maybe he just has anxiety, and it's just exhibiting behaviors that your friends or your family don't really agree with. Now you find yourself locking the dog in the bedroom or you know, locking the dog in a crate somewhere and putting it off. And, you know, not only is it going to be impacting your relationships, but maybe your relationship with your dog even, right. So definitely impacting relationships is definitely the number one thing that I hear from working with hundreds of trainers. And it's actually the reason why I got into this space myself. Number two, I would say is eating into your time. So when it comes to dog training, and when you go out and you seek professional help, depending on the level of help you're looking for, depending on the situation you're in, you're going to see a lot of different prices. And you might have a different, everyone has a different budget, right? So when it comes to finding a dog trainer, one of the constraints sometimes is money. And we have to make a decision on the value of our time, right? Because when it starts eating into the eating into your time, that's we're talking about your quality of life. Sure, right? So are you going to, you know, walk your dog late 11 o'clock at night in your neighborhood, because your dog can't be around other people, other dogs. So now you find yourself, you know doing things at weird hours of the night to avoid other people or maybe you're embarrassed. And maybe that's why you go out late or you wake up super early. And now you don't get a good night's rest, and now it's impacting your work. So eating into your time is definitely a big one. Or maybe your dog's not potty trained. And you find yourself leaving, you know, events early or family gatherings which you got to get home to the dog because it's not properly potty trained. Or you don't want to leave it out too long, because it might tear something up or start chewing on something in your house. So when it starts eating into your time, that eats into your quality of life. So that's definitely a reason to start looking for some professional help. Number three is when there can be an underlying issue. So at this point, maybe you've tried to YouTube stuff and Googled some things and you can't really identify why some of these outbreaks or reactivity or some of the behaviors, why are they happening in the first place? Right sometimes they happen. Sometimes they don't sometimes my dog does bark when he sees somebody walk past us. Sometimes he doesn't, right. And if you don't understand the real underlying issue or cause what's going on with your dog, your training, the communication that you're setting up with your dog, you might not be hitting the right thing. So it's important to have somebody else to again, take that second perspective, you know, take a look at what's going on, from an outside view, to see if there's something that they can see to help you out and identifying what that underlying issue is, so that you can make the proper changes in the communication with your pet. And then number four here. When you're out of answers. Passings is an obvious one, when you have, you know, tried the things that you remember mom and dad did in the past growing up, when you have tried to do the YouTube and look for the information on the internet. And there's a lot of good information on the internet guys, I'm not saying don't do that, there's a lot of good stuff on there. There's a lot of professional help on there, there are a lot of trainers that are well known that put a lot of good content out there to help people. But sometimes it doesn't work for your situation, and you really don't know where to go. The last thing we want is dogs to end up in a shelter, or to end up homeless, right. And unfortunately, shelters exist. Because people run out of answers, and they don't know what to do next. So I need professional help, it's out there, and people can help you with you in your situation. And spoiler alert, five. Me personally, I truly believe that everybody should at some point in their lifetime, seek out professional help, because it will help you along your journey as a pet owner. I would imagine someone that has a pet now, will probably have a pet 10 years from now, or 20 years from now or 30 years from now. So getting that professional help can really set you up for the rest of your life. With all the pets that you have. it's not just training the dog, it's actually training you on how you can communicate with all your pets in the future.
Love it. So okay, be honest, how much of this training is for the dog versus the dog parent? Or are we really training us the humans?
Absolutely, everybody has a different ratio. I would say 85/50. 85% of it is training the human. Yeah. And about 15% actually training the dog.
And I think what we have to remember is, you know, whatever is going on with, you know, if your dog is not understanding or picking up on commands, or they have leash aggression, or whatever it is that as frustrated as we are, they are equally as frustrated. So to “speak their language” and understand what's going on and how you both can live harmoniously without running into these issues time and time again, we have to remember that this training, so that we can both live in harmony is good for both of us, our dogs and us as people. That is just going to increase our bond with them. Right?
Absolutely. And the one thing that you mentioned a couple times now is the word communication. And I've started to look at training as a whole and this industry as a whole a little differently than when I first came into it. And instead of training instead of because I also like to look at it from the client perspective, right? The clients aren't as educated as someone that's been in the space that's been studying, that’s been practicing. So I want to make it make sense for them as well. And I like to use the word communication a lot more than I like to use the word training. Because at the end of the day, people think that people might have an expectation that, okay, I'm going to go in and get a few lessons, and I'm going to train my dog, and that's it, my dog is automatically going to know what to do. But the truth is, if you don't keep up on the “training”, then what's going to happen is your dog is going to go back into its old habits. So instead of looking at it as training, look at it as communication. And if you look at it that way, it's something that you always have to do. Right now, Krista, you and I are able to communicate, we both speak English. Unfortunately, our dogs don't speak English. So we have to learn and understand how we can communicate with them in a way, but then we have to hold ourselves to that standard. If we expect that if we're going to set expectations for our dogs, we're going to have to always constantly communicate in the same way. We can't just do our training and be done with it. We have to learn that communication system, we have to uphold it for the life of the dog. And if you find yourself doing that, you'll find yourself you're not actually training, you're just communicating. So whether it's with a leash, whether it's with another piece of equipment or whether it's just setting boundaries in your home, if you're consistent with it, it doesn't even feel like training anymore. It just feels like you're speaking their language.
Well said! Well, Louie, this is a perfect spot where we are going to take a quick commercial break. We have a lot more to talk about, so we will be right back.
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And we are back with Louie Torres. We're talking about the five signs, it's time to hire a professional dog trainer. And Louie, you are just shining so much good light on this topic. Because no dog is perfect. And for sure no human is perfect. So why don't you tell us? What is the difference between a professional dog trainer and a professional behaviorist?
Dog Trainer vs Dog Behaviorist
Great question. And this is really a tricky question. And I think it's tricky because everyone has a different perspective. And I think it's completely subjective. Because at the end of the day, there's no federal laws or any policy on what it takes to become a professional dog trainer or to become a professional dog behaviorist. Yes, there are organizations that are out there where you can pay to take some sort of certification. But who are actually governing those organizations, it's tough to really identify what it is, what the criteria is that goes into both. I think it's very subjective. For me, the way that I look at it, I think it can be that would…well Krista, you got me on that one.
Well I guess, maybe to make it easier. What's the difference between you know, basic obedience training? Yeah, versus behavioral, you know, I have issues like chewing, barking, housebreaking, that really would not be addressed by obedience per se. So I guess my question is, because I know there's two different types of training out there.
Yeah, and I guess, there's so many different philosophies. And there are so many different types of training methods, where it gets a little touchy on on that type of subject, right. And the last thing that I want to do is isolate anybody, but I will say based on the training that I've come across, so a quick little, this will help out people in understanding where I'm coming from. So as the owner of Unleashed Consultanting, I've had an opportunity to work with over 200 Dog Training businesses. I've worked with all different types of methods, philosophies, training equipment, I've seen it all and I've actually practiced a lot of it myself. Because for me, in order to be the best marketer and consultant in the space, I need to actually get hands on and and learn and see what my clients are dealing with and actually see what the results and outcomes look like. So I've had an opportunity, very, very fortunate opportunity to really dive into this space. So I just want to start with that. And I was able to find a trainer who I built a relationship with, because I really, really loved his method. He was extremely open minded, and he had a lot of different pieces that he was putting into this puzzle. And the thing that I loved about him was that not every dog is the same. So he didn't train every dog the same. There are some trainers that if you come to them or behaviorists, if you come to them, this is the way that they would handle this type of dog, if you're not comfortable with that, they’ll refer you to somebody else, rather than having multiple different methods, multiple different approaches for multiple different dogs. So that's one of the reasons why I partnered with him with Obedient Canine. So the difference between the two in our system is, like you said, the obedience and behaviors are a little bit different. For us, we like to appreciate behaviors, we like to allow our dogs to do some critical thinking, and reward those behaviors so that they become natural, right? But the basic obedience where you know, you can do commands and whatnot, it can kind of crossover, depending on how you train the behaviors and how you're doing behavior training. So that's where I say, for us particularly, I like to combine the two, and so that my dog doesn't have to just listen to me when I when I repeat a command, if I wish to say place, my dog's gonna go to place, great. When we teach the behavior training that we do, my dog’s naturally just want to go to place just to hang out. If it's not doing anything, because that's the behaviors that we're kind of implementing by playing games with them. So I understand that there are a couple different ways. Our approach utilizes both, which is why I love doing what I do, because we're able to hit both of those. Does that kind of answer your question?
Thank you. That does. So for people that would like to get started with finding a professional trainer, is the major barrier cost?
Common Barriers
Yeah, I think the major barrier is cost. You also mentioned another one, which is, I guess, just from a personal perspective, admitting. Admitting that you need help, which is one of the hardest things, right? I hear it all the time, when you know, we go out and we meet a married couple, one of the spouses is like, Oh, our dog needs training the other one’s like no, I can do this at home. Right. So it's like, just being able to admit that, you know, if you could have done it at home, you would have done it by now. Right? So it's okay. There's so much information when it comes to dog training, there's so much information on the internet, there's so much information from our families and our friends and other people that have dealt with pets and dogs their whole lives. So with that information, it's about just finding out what's going to work for you, everybody's different, everybody is going to practice differently. So I would say that's another barrier that people overlook. Okay, the second one is definitely going to be price. And I mentioned earlier, a different way of looking at it, right, because it's all perspective. So if I have a rescue, and I've got some anxiety, or I've got, you know, maybe I just want some basic obedience, because the dog doesn't have too much direction, or I just want to have some boundaries in my home or boundaries in my lifestyle with my dog. Right? If you want some professional help, which is going to expedite the process of you learning it and making mistakes on your own, then it's going to cost you. Is you're paying for somebody else's time, you're paying for somebody else's expertise, right. So just for example, if I was to look at the average of the hundreds of dog trainers that I work with, that basic obedience package might range from $1000 to $1,500. A lot of money, right? A lot of money, not everybody just has $1,500 just sitting in their account where they can just, you know, give that away. But the way that I look at it is if you just got a rescue you're going to have this dog for the next 10 to 15 years of your life. If you break that $1,000 up over that span, it's less than $100 a year for you to learn, and to become fluent in a language where you can have this harmonious life with his dog. I think it's priceless. That's the way that I look at it.
And it's an investment.
It's an investment. Yeah, because guess what, not only are you gonna know how to communicate with this dog that you’ve brought into your family, into your life, over the next 10 to 15 years. But then the next dog that you have down the road, and maybe you have another dog down the road, you're going to have the tools and information to be able to create that language and that communication to bridge the gap that you're currently having with your pet. And you're going to be able to do that without having to spend money in the future. As long as you're locked in, you got to be locked in. You got to be willing to put the time in. I was a little crazy. I'm a little perfectionist sometimes. So with my dogs, I made sure I was on a schedule like they were like my kids, right, like I kind of schedule. I made sure I was consistent with the training, you know, three times a day, 15 minutes. And that's really all it was three times a day 15 minutes. Now I don't really do training sessions as much, it's more or less just making sure that I'm consistent on my walk with, you know how I'm handling my leash consistently, not letting my dog just run up to people, it doesn't turn into training, it just turns into a language. And now my dogs, I don't have to remind them as much on how I want them to behave because it's become our lifestyle.
Regulation
Well, just like everything in the pet industry, nothing is regulated. So there really is no state or federal certification needed to be a dog trainer, at least here in the United States. So when we are looking to choose a trainer, what do you recommend? What are some of the accreditations that maybe we should make sure that people do have?
That is the word I was looking for before, regulation.
Regulation, we have none.
We have none in the space. And it's difficult to tell, it's difficult to tell, I've done a lot of research into different organizations. And I think it's important to be open minded. As much as you know, I mean, your main organization is your American Kennel Club. And then you have different ones based on research and different philosophies of training. That's where it can get a little bit biased. And that's where you have to trial and error a little bit and figure out what's best for you and figure out how you want to communicate with your dog and what you are and what you are not willing to do. But the one thing that I have seen is, it's extremely important to be open minded, because every single dog is different, because every owner has a different lifestyle and has a different commitment that they're able to give. So what I look for first is I'm going to look at content. So hopefully this person is posting on social media. If they're not, that's a red flag for me. Why aren't they posting on there? Maybe something has happened in the past, you know, unfortunately, there are situations where people do things that they shouldn't be doing. And you know, that unfortunately, they get a bad rap. And they're not going to be posting content. So that's the first thing I look for, I look for content, I look for results. Within that content, maybe I can find a dog that started out similarly to mine, and maybe they can share a journey. And I can actually see how a dog was reacting to their particular training program or protocol. I'm going to look at some reviews, I'm going to make sure that that they have reviews and that people are raving about them and, and the ones that are negative, I'm going to look at them with a grain of salt, again, I want to be able to be open minded and understand and really look at the content that's out there. Maybe someone didn't have, maybe someone had a bad experience because they didn't put the work in because as I mentioned earlier, it's 85% the human, 15% the dog. So just because someone had a bad experience with this trainer, I'm not going to immediately disqualify them knowing that most of the time, it's the human that wasn't following up on their end. So that's where I'm going to get started as far as organization. Now, there's a number of different organizations out there. IACP, you've got the American Kennel Club. I mean, you're looking at CCPDT, you know, but like I said, I look at those with a grain of salt, because all you have to do is sign up pay, take a test, you don't actually have to be practicing those things, right. So I just make sure that I look for content, right? Lastly, I'm going to really take a take advantage of my evaluation. Most dog training businesses will provide a free evaluation, not all of them, but most of them. Some do a paid evaluation, and sometimes it is worth paying that evaluation, right? I've seen different business models, I'm not here to say one's better over the other from business perspective. I'm looking at it from the consumer standpoint, I like free evaluations, because there is so much information on the internet. And because every client’s different I want to lead with service. And I want to make sure not only that I'm providing them information to see if I'm going to be a good fit for the client. But I want to make sure that the client’s a good fit for me, right, because that's the only way that I'm going to be able to know as a dog trainer, that this person is going to feel comfortable with my programs. They're going to follow through and we're going to get the best results for that dog. And if that's not the case. And that's okay. They're better off working with someone else. So that's why I love free evaluations. It gives you an opportunity to meet and also an opportunity to meet the dog. And I look at it from this perspective. If you go to a doctor and you have some symptoms, right, the doctor is not just going to prescribe you a drug. The doctor is going to do a consultation. They're going to learn about your health history. They're going to learn if you're allergic to any medicines. They're going to do all your vitals, they're going to do some sort of exam. And then given that process, after they've done all those steps, then they would prescribe you medicine. So that's why I don't like just doing like a phone consultation with a trainer over the phone and then buying into a program. I need to make sure that I meet them, I need to make sure that they're seeing how my dogs interact with myself, with them. And whatever that situation is, I want them to actually take a look at it first. And I think that's really important when finding a trainer, someone that goes the extra mile to make sure that they're actually giving you the right prescription. And they're not just there to make a sale.
Louie, this has been amazing advice. I can't believe that we are about to wrap up here. But the only thing I would probably add is, in addition to understanding what that trainer’s philosophy is, you can always call references, you know, preferably, Do you have anybody that had a dog, you know, with a similar situation? And could I ask them what their experience was working with you?
So that's a great idea. I love that.
I think this was amazing, and hopefully gave a lot of our listeners something to think about. So I know that you have two offers that you would like to give us before we wrap up here. So you have one for pet service businesses and one for the dog owners. So why don't you share with us what those are?
OFFERS
Absolutely, Krista. Thank you for the opportunity. So if you are a pet service business, and you're looking for some consulting, advice, marketing advice, technologies to help you automate some of this stuff, please go to unleashedconsulting.com. And you can book a free strategy call with a member of my team. And if you are a dog owner, we also do virtual training. So you don't have to be in the Virginia Beach or the Charlotte area, but you can get that free evaluation where we'll meet you will meet your dog through Obedient K9, https://www.obedientk9va.com/. And you can get a free evaluation through the website.
Social Media URLs or Tags
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unleashedconsulting/, https://www.instagram.com/obedient_k9_training/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unleashedconsultingco, https://www.facebook.com/obk9charlotte
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louie-torres-7a203b1a0/
Nice. Alright, so everybody gets to get something.
The thing that we do differently with that evaluation, is not only are we going to evaluate your dog, but really take a step back, really put your dog into the situation so that we can take that second look and see what could possibly be the underlying cause. But the thing that we believe in is leading with value. So we're actually going to do your first training lesson during that session, right. And we're going to do a couple of different things to see how your dogs interacts with, with us and with our communication system. Because like I said, it's not just one system, we want to figure out what would be the best way for your dog to go. So again, thank you so much for your time, Krista. And yeah, those are the ways that I can help you guys out.
Awesome. Well, of course, all of these links will be in the show notes. And so Louie, if anybody just wants to find out more information about you and the company, is it just the unleashedconsulting.com
Correct.
Okay. Awesome. All right. Well, Louie, thank you so much. And thank you to our listeners for wanting to do better for your dog. And hopefully this gave you some new insights. Thanks, everybody.
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Hey Winston was that another tail wagging episode?
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