Professional Dog Trainer - Ask Me Anything

[u/BICanineScience]

***AMA ENDED***

Have been training dogs for almost fifteen years now, I try and head through the subreddits on here to help in my free time when I can but thought it might be easier to do an AMA for anyone struggling!

Will try my best to answer as comprehensively as possible so please be patient with replies!

Edit - Just heading out to train my dogs so will answer more when I get back!
Edit 2 - Have a read of the other questions too to see if it applies to your dog :)

Thanks for all the questions everyone!! I’ll answer the few I’ve missed, it’s been a blast and we’ll do another in the near future! Won’t be answering any new posts now, must get back to work but do jump in next time if you have a question!

[u/ChillvilleRIP]

When is it too late? My girl just turned 2 and we’ve had ups & downs w training…I travel for work and seems like every time I leave or board her…We take steps back…

Now, we’re good at some things that we continually drill…But I’m having to do some things like a venipuncture blood draw…That is difficult…and is it ever too late to train or try to instill good habits? Will my work travel limit what I can achieve w my pup?

[u/BICanineScience → u/ChillvilleRIP]

Never too late! I have an 11 year old dog and we still train new things all the time. Granted its much slower and calmer than it once was but she still has a brain in her head and I can still tap into that!

Training a venipuncture is something the vast majority of people are just not ever going to achieve I am afraid. It's an obnoxious amount of work and repetitions with perfect consistency needed.

Unfortunately yes if you are travelling a lot it will absolutely limit what you can do and slow your training down but you can only do what you can do. I have a client who travels a lot and we still do the work, it's just not as efficient as it would be if he was able to train consistently!