So you want to be a dog trainer?

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining: Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count. Thank you.

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I spend so much money on the dog though. My wife's like, you spend more money on the dog than me. It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah. Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then I get one like, oh my God, what the fuck? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet And I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, uh, the podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to yell. It's okay, he's friendly. Uh, my name is Jack Lawrence. Max O'Neill. Uh, full disclosure, I am not a professional dog trainer whatsoever. I'm purely a hobbyist. Who has a working dog and basically out of necessity. So my house didn't get destroyed. I got into dog training and I love it. Max and I met when I first got Kiri. He was helping me. He's a brilliant dog trainer on the Gold Coast, actually got like the highest ratings on the Gold Coast for dog trainers. Super educated when it comes to dog training, Max. You've fully educated yourself school-wise and everything, not just working with lots of different breeds and everything, but you've done, you know, theory and practical, all of it. And that's kind of where we want to sort of sit here today, because there'll be lots of people listening. Who love the idea of spending their day working with dogs, training dogs. You know, maybe they're like me because I'm at that point now where I'm an enthusiast and I'd like to just take myself to that next level. I'm not saying I'm going to suddenly become a dog trainer, but I'd like to get to that next level. And I actually messaged you recently and it's like, hey dude, what do I do to learn more than just your average Joe? I don't want to just watch YouTube videos. I want to actually delve a bit deeper into this. So we thought we'd actually make an episode out of this so you can help people who may want to move towards dog training as a career.

Yeah. So, it's a message that we get in the inbox a few times a week of people going, how to become a dog trainer? And that's either people who've thought about it for a while and maybe they're fresh out of school, it's people wanting a career change or people like yourself that have caught the bug from training their own dog and going, mate, I want to do this all day, every day. So, this episode today, we're going to talk about 3 main points on how to become a dog trainer. It's by no means a like, this is what you must do.

Yeah, blueprint.

But this is what I think is pretty necessary in order for you to become a good trainer who is, you know, doing right by people once you actually get out there and start to train dogs. And we're going to focus on those 3 main points today. So, whether you're looking for a career change or this is going to be a, you know, full-time thing or whatever your plans to be.

Bit of a side hustle, maybe.

Or a side hustle. Exactly. This is my thinking of getting into it, I suppose. So, the 3 main points are formal education, Shadow work and getting your hands on a dog. And we'll break down each of those. So, I think number one, it is important to get some level of formal education. I don't think this is just the one-stop shop. I see a lot of people who'll go and get certified in various certifications and go and practise the next day. I don't think doing that will adequately prepare you, hence our other 2 points. But I do think it's completely necessary. I do see people who skip this step and will just kind of like Work for someone or shadow someone or volunteer at a here or there and then think they're ready.

Well, because people want to skip the, quote unquote, the boring part. People see it as the boring part. Like, no, I just want to get in. I want to do things. I don't want to read a book.

Exactly. And we do. And you see lots of those people out in the field working dogs, and you can see that they're quite often severely lacking a lot of that dog training theory, behaviour, you know, training theory and things like that. And, you know, they can get away with it a lot of the time, but there's times where they'll get more complex stuff and you can just see if you guys just had that knowledge, you'd be able to get it. So Number one is to get some level of formal accreditation and, and dog training or a dog trainers trainers course.

Now, just while we're on that, I mean, can you, were you able to suggest it anywhere in particular? Because I know that was hard for me because I started Googling it going, you know, and all these things came up and there's so many of them like, well, what's the right thing? Which one's a good one? What's a bad one?

So the 2 recommendations I'll provide are both Australian based. In terms of overseas, I won't provide any recommendations. But if you're here domestically in Australia, the number one is the Cert III in Dog Training and behaviour, which is what I've done. That's through the National Dog Trainers Federation or the NDTF. And that's a fantastic course. Like I said, a really good starting place. It will definitely give you a really solid level of foundational knowledge, give you a lot of practical skills, both in terms of dog training and some business ownership and class structure and presenting, etc.

Can you do that distance education?

You can, but there are— but it is essential to do like 2 practical blocks. So, 2 lots of 7 or 8 day things. So, all up you'll spend about 2 and a half weeks on campus.

Right. Okay.

Whether that's on Queensland, Sydney or Melbourne. But yeah, other than that, you do it remotely. So, I did it on the Sunshine Coast from the Gold Coast. So, for 9 of the 10 months of the course, I was remote and then I spent a few weeks up there a couple of times just to do my training. And like I said, it's a great starting place, but it's by no means all you should do. The other one is a place called the Cert Academy Online. This one's run by a guy called Boyd Hooper, who I'm a huge fan of. And this is the same again, like both there's some online elements, there's some face-to-face elements, and there's various levels there. And that will give you an amazing level of knowledge for your training theory, behaviour theory, and things like that, and arm you with all the knowledge you need to get started on the next steps.

And you may have already said it and I missed it, but how long do these courses generally run?

Cool. So the NDTF one runs for about 10 months is my understanding from memory. And the Cert Academy, I'm not sure, but I think they estimate that can take 6 to 12 months to complete based on how much time you put into study each week as well and how long it takes you to work through the units. They're my top 2 in Australia. There might be some other courses out there. Again, it's—

But those are accredited, actual accredited sort of seen as a—

It's a funny one. So the Cert III is like an official registered Cert III, like Certificate III. It's met all the RTO requirements to be that. But in Australia, it's an unregulated industry. So Anyone and anyone, everyone can be a dog trainer. And—

We've seen that on Instagram.

Yeah. And there's pros and cons. Some of the most amazing dog trainers I've ever come across haven't got a formal qualification, and that's fine. But also some of the most average dog trainers I've ever seen and downright bad dog trainers would massively benefit if they had have done a formal accreditation. So, again, it's by no means the be-all end-all, but it's one of the 3 key things I think you need to do if you plan on becoming a dog trainer.

If you're serious about it, if you're actually serious about it.

Yeah, exactly. Then you'll invest a little bit of money into your education and it's definitely worth it, in my opinion. But that's step 1. That's a good starting place, I think. And like I said, by coming out of that course, you're by no means ready to practise, but you're in really good stead. And it means when you get to step 2 and step 3, at least you'll have an idea of what you're doing. And step 2 and 3 will fill in some knowledge gaps.

Great. So step 2.

Get your hands on some dogs.

Yeah. Don't literally steal any dogs, but, you know, just try and get your hand on a couple of dogs. So, I mean, hopefully anyone who wants to do this has already got an experience with maybe their own dog. Yeah. But I suppose not necessary. Like, you don't have to have your own dog, you know.

No, not necessarily at all. And actually almost goes against that point, if anything, because you see lots of people who go, all right, I've trained my dog, I'm going to do this for other people. But if you've trained up your golden retriever or your staffie or your Frenchie, whatever you've got, is that individual dog is going to feel very different to a lot of other individuals and a lot of other breeds, a lot of other sizes and energy levels. Etc. So my recommendation from there is just to get your hands on other dogs. It's something I did early on as well before I officially started. I trained up not only my 2 Labradors, but I'd work with most of my friends' Rottweilers, my friends' GSPs, my friends' Dachshunds, my family's this and that. Is just getting your hands on other dogs, and even sometimes if it's doing it for free, whether that's volunteering at a pound or a rescue, or even with another trainer going, hey, can I, you know, help you with your workload? And, and a reputable trainer, and getting your hands on different dogs because you'll Absolutely learn a lot. Again, that dog will feel so different. I remember the first time I handled a Rottweiler compared to my Labradors. I partially fell in love, was like, oh, this is awesome. But also I was like, this is way more than what I'm used to. Yeah. It was like stepping into a Lamborghini for the first time when I'd grown, you know, used to training Suzuki Jimnys. It was very, very, very different. So getting your hands on other dogs and, and understanding that's very different because you don't want that first exposure to a completely different breed you work with to be a paying customer when you bring them out to your house and you're like, I've never even met or never even held or handled a Boer Bull before. Yeah, yeah. So, but it's by no means you have to go through the whole encyclopedia and go to A to Z of every breed because there's 500 or 600 registered breeds. But it's at least going through and getting your hands on quite a few of those in various groups, whether that's, you know, your gundogs, sighthounds, scent hounds, utility, toy breeds, etc., um, bull breeds, just so you get a bit of a feel for different For different dogs, and that's a few ways to do

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Yeah, I mean, I know from my own personal experience, like, I recently looked after an assistance dog from Assistance Dogs Australia. We had Wombat came to stay with us for a month, so I reached out to Assistance Dogs Australia who are always looking for people to care for the dogs, especially from You know, if you can commit to it from like a puppy all the way through to they go off to their sort of big school to learn, and you you get to learn about the socialisation and taking you through all that. So Wombat came to us purely just for Christmas because people caring for him were going away. He came to stay with us, and it was really I've never I've obviously met Labradors before or Golden Retrievers. I've met them before, but I've never actually you know had one. And and it was amazing going from the energy and the crazy crackhead Kira to Wombat, who was just like this dopey like oh you know he. no food drive. And I was like, you know, I was like, okay, this guy, I've got to try and do this differently. And so it was really interesting to work with a completely different breed, you know, and taking him different places. Obviously, you know, with that you're training them to be calm and relaxed in shopping centers and things like that. So that was really interesting to do that with him and getting used to travelators and all that sort of stuff. So that was really great fun. And, you know, you obviously recently put me in contact with another lady who I'm going to look at, you know, working with her with a completely different style of dog.

Yep.

That's going to be trained up for a completely different job. And that's where I'm at the moment, just trying to get my hands on as many dogs as I can. You know, friends are seeing my Instagram going, can you take our dog for a couple of weeks? I'm like, absolutely. Oh, you've got— what have you got? Yep. Bring it here. I'll train it for you for a couple of weeks. I mean, much to my wife's absolute pain, because a lot of these dogs come untrained and destroy plants and drives her insane. But there's that. And there's also, for a long time, as I mentioned before on the podcast, is we were fostering dogs. So there's a lot of organizations who are desperate for foster carers. to take care of dogs until they find their forever home. And that could be a fantastic way of not only, you know, coming across heaps of different breeds, because I know a lot of the foster people that I was fostering through, you could, they would allow you just to pick and choose. There's a whole folder full of pictures of dogs, different breeds, different ages, different temperaments, all in this thing. And you can literally say, look, which dog would you like? And you can literally just pick and choose and say, oh, great. I'll take that one.

One of those.

Yeah. And you can just, and now you can, I've had puppies and we've had all sorts of different breeds. I've had German Shepherds come through here. Cattle dogs, of course, with Kira and her brother. And that is such a great way. It's free. It's not— it doesn't cost you anything because they pay for all the food and the vet bills and everything like that. So, it's just a perfect way to get free education, in my opinion, free hands-on education.

Absolutely. And you're contributing to the system. It's a great way to do it. And you'll learn so much about a dog if you— whether you look after them for a couple of days, a couple of weeks or a couple of months, is you'll learn heaps about that breed and that style of dog as well. So, it's definitely something we encourage. to do a whole lot of. And again, it's one of our critical steps that we think you need to do to become a dog trainer. And honestly, guys, like, if you do that, you'll actually put yourself in really good stead and give yourself a massive edge over a lot of dog trainers. Yes. There's a lot of trainers I know out there who are now servicing the pet market, so they're dealing with all breeds, but maybe they come from a background of just dealing with Labradors in a guide or assistance dog scenario, or just dealing with Border Collies in like a herding scenario, or just dealing with Malinois in like a I don't know, military scenario or whatever it is. There's a lot of people that come from backgrounds of just being with an exclusive breed and they can find it challenging adjusting. So by the time you eventually become a professional dog trainer and go to market, if you've had your hands on different breeds, it will definitely put you in good stead rather than you being like, oh wow, I'm only used to this type of dog and everything else feels very different. So that's why we think it's so critical and just an essential step for you.

I think it's like any job that you do, it's all about flying hours. It's about, you know, it's about just getting in there and just doing it. If you love dogs, then it's It's fun too, because you get to, you know, you get to experience all these different breeds. And I know for me, it's like, for me, it's almost like testing breeds for my next dog. It's like going, what do I want? Because I think I've got an idea of what I'd like for my next dog. And, you know, this lady you put me in contact with, this particular breed she's got and what they're training the dog for, that's kind of what I would like for my next dog. So it's going to be perfect little, put my feet in the water and test it.

And I might go after 6 months of having this dog like, nah, can't do it. Absolutely not. It's like, great. Well, I haven't taken on a dog.

Yeah.

And now I've gone, what am I going to do? It's like, Taking on the dog, it's got to go anyway because it's going to go and do what it's got to do in its job. And then I can go, you know what, not for me. And I can maybe try another dog. But

what goes back to our last episode about those 4 levels of things you've got to do before actually deciding on a dog, and you're doing that. You're, you're having your own little, you know, test ride or test drive, so to speak, of the car or the dog. Yeah. And, um, and same, guys, it's doing this and getting your hands on dogs is also a great way of, I guess, test driving whether you want to be a dog trainer. Honestly, it's pretty crazy to see the people I did my course with. There's about 10 people that the dropout rate was pretty significant. And there's a lot of people who, once they got into it, went, oh, I actually don't want to do this. And before you quit your job, before you pay for all these branding and flyers and set up a Facebook and Instagram page and tell everyone you're going to do it, go and get your hands on your dogs in one way or another. Because you might find after 10, 20 dogs that you're burned out and you actually don't want to do this. Or you might find you love it. And you might also sort of find the dogs that you do and don't want to work with. There might be certain things or certain cases or certain breeds that you go, you know what, I'm not going to work with that because it's either out of my depth or I don't enjoy that style of training or whatever. And At least it gives you a bit of a chance to fill that up.

Some people may enjoy training their own dog, but not really enjoy training other people's dogs. Like, you know, cause you're not only just training the dog, you've got to train the people too. Which is again, a completely different ballgame. And you can come up with people, come up against people who are like,

oh, my dog's not training. You try and, you know, as you would have, I'm sure you've done this, it's happened to you so many times. You try and instill all these things in them and then they come back to you the next week and they've done fuck all. And you may find that too frustrating and you may not. And this probably leads to your third point, which is shadowing a professional dog trainer.

Yeah, so shadowing a professional trainer is huge as well. It's just getting out there and finding someone that— whose training style you like, trying to start finding someone whose philosophy lines up with you, and finding someone who's further ahead than you. It's, it's so easy to be— go, oh cool, I'm like the dog person in my friend group. And it's easy to be a big fish in a small pond, right? Oh well, my friends know a little bit about dogs and I know a lot, so it's fun to hang out with them and be the best. But if you really want to be good, guys, is go find people who are better than you. Yeah. And offer to shadow them, even if it's free, whether it's part of a paid program. But you'll see all that applied knowledge. You'll see all that knowledge in an applied fashion. You'll see them use it and you go, wow, I knew all about conditioning and whatnot, and, you know, in theory, but seeing it actually put in practice has taught me a lot. You'll also see how to run a dog training and a services-based business, how to, how to, you know, maintain ethics, how to be good to your customers, etc., etc. And you'll learn how to conduct a session and actually deliver a proper service. And it's something I definitely see as essential because, again, there's a lot of people going out there who are You know, kind of just fumbling their way through, and it can be tough. And I totally get that. You know, with the dog training industry, there's not many businesses— well, there's not a whole lot of businesses big enough to support having staff, which means that probably 80% of people, when they become a dog trainer, end up working for themselves and becoming a sole trader, which it can be tough. You go, I have no clue what I'm doing. Whereas if you've spent some time shadowing someone who's further down the line with you, it means when you start, you'll have such a good idea of what to offer and And how to do it and what you're doing and why. And I think it's definitely critical. And like I said, just for expanding your skillset too, jump behind someone who's far better than you and it'll be a bit of an ego check. It will hurt the ego. It will make you feel like you're absolutely terrible at your job. But I can promise you, if you're doing that, it'll make you an amazing dog trainer in the long run.

And you, even as where you are and the amount of study you've done, the amount of dogs you've worked with, the amount of amazing reviews you've got as a dog trainer, you're still always constantly surrounding yourself with people that are further along than you. I know you're going to be spending time soon with Pat Stewart.

Absolutely. So this year I've actually elected to take one day off a week just purely for professional development. So I won't be training anyone else's dogs. I'll just be doing more learning. So I've been in business for about 6 years, guys. As Jack said, I'm pretty established. We've got staff, we've got a big organisation now, the most reviews on the Gold Coast, all that sort of stuff. But I know by no means just want to be stagnant. So this year I've I elected to spend a week with Pat Stewart in May studying with him and again bouncing around ideas with 10 other trainers. I can't wait for that. And also doing some work with Jamie the dog trainer down in Victoria as well, because again, just looking for people, I'm like, hey, if you can do one thing that's even 1% better than me, I need to be around you and I need to figure out how to close that gap so I can be the very best. And that's what it's all about. And

what I love as well is I see you training Nelson with other dog trainers as well. So it's not just like, I'm a dog trainer, I know how to train my dog, no one else needs to. Because I know you train with Apex on the Gold Coast. He's a fantastic dog trainer who knows all about working dogs. And I see you doing training with him. It's about surrounding yourself with people who have different knowledge to you.

Exactly.

And it's all about being a sponge.

Helping each other out. It's— and exactly, guys, it's being honest. Like, there's a lot of stuff that, say, Scott from Apex does. He's way more knowledgeable and way more experienced and way better at things that I have, you know, was very poor at or didn't know a lot about initially. it's through surrounding yourself with people like that that updates your skill set, and vice versa. It's also then being— once you have a knowledge or a skill set, not being stingy with that information.

Yeah, that's the other thing.

Yeah. Oh, with other dog trainers around the Gold Coast, Brisbane, or interstate going, hey, I need help with this. And it's, it's about, you know, if you've taken out the system, you've got to give back. So once you learn this stuff, pass it on. Go, yeah, come along, like, learn and do this. And, you know, we get dog trainers to our courses all the time or doing shadow work and learning because I'm like, well, someone did this for me one day and it helped, and I want to do the same thing because Overall, it makes them better. And the more better dog trainers we have, the better the industry is as a whole. So whether you're 1 year into your career, you haven't started, or you're 10 years into your career, guys, is never stop shadowing because it's just the best thing you can do for yourself. And I bumped into a trainer recently who had been doing this for 20, 30 years and, um, doesn't have that mindset at all. And all I'll say is you can absolutely tell. Their training style, their philosophies, their methodology, their knowledge base is just so far behind and stagnant. And, you know, it shows in terms of, you know, their output, the dogs they train, it's severely lacking. And in terms of just their business numbers are dwindling because there's far younger— or sorry, better people, younger into the industry, um, just surpassing them because they're doing that thing and having that open mind. So if you do that as well, we'll put you in good stead. Just a good solid education, get your hands on dogs, shadow a dog trainer. You do those 3 things and you'll be armed and ready to go.

Dog People Podcast Facebook, if you've got any questions, of course. If you have any questions on anything that we talk about, throw it up there.

I will not answer any of them, but Max will. That'll be me. Max will take the questions. So good luck in your journey if you're thinking about becoming a dog trainer. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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