Asking for help when we see that our efforts are not enough to properly educate our pet, or to solve a behavioural problem, can sometimes be complicated. If it is already difficult to accept that we have a problem and that we need help, finding the right person can be an odyssey.
There are a lot of so-called professionals around us who call themselves behaviour therapists, canine or feline psychologists, trainers, ethologists, etc., and not even a quarter of them work legally or have the necessary training to carry out work of this magnitude.
So I'm going to give you a few tips so you can confidently choose the right person to help you:
- Make sure that they are working legally. Unfortunately, there is a lot of intrusion in this sector. Many people who love animals have taken a training course and are now charging for spending a few hours training pets in their free time… These people are unlikely to have the proper training, they do not pay taxes, and they do not even have professional insurance (something essential when you are working with living beings).
- Make sure they are prepared to do this job. A serious professional will not be afraid to show their training, their CV and their work on social media. Although some of us are allergic to social media (here is one who is very sick of it), nowadays a minimal presence is essential to show who you are and what you do. If there is no way to see how well a person is trained, be suspicious… and if there is no way to read or see how they work, be suspicious too.
- In addition, the professional you choose must have up-to-date training. In recent years, the world of dogs and cats has undergone an impressive revolution and the techniques and work methodology have changed completely. There are many professionals who continue to work as they did 20 years ago, using obsolete and harmful methods. They can have 20 years or more of experience in doing things just as badly.
- Read reviews and listen to other clients. Don't just look at ratings. There are often centres with different services and professionals, and the ratings on websites and Google may not be from the person you are going to hire.
- There are very good dog trainers in a discipline, who compete in obedience championships, rescue, or work in substance detection... and yet they do not have the appropriate training to work with dogs with problems. It would be something like taking a child with psychological problems to athletics classes... it would certainly help, but it would be a patch that would not solve the problem, only improve it a little momentarily. This does not mean that there are excellent professionals who, in addition to having training in ethology and behavior modification, compete in different disciplines, but make sure that this is the case. I recommend that you read Ethologists, educators and trainers.
- Choose a person you connect with and feel comfortable with. You can have the best professional in the world in front of you, but if you don't like them or don't feel comfortable with them, the process of change that you and your pet will have to go through will be much harder. For the process to work, you must enjoy the journey and trust the person who is going to help you.
- Make sure that this person does not use aversive methods to treat your pet. Since it is frowned upon to do so, everyone will say that they do not do it and even write on their websites that they use gentle methods with dogs even though they do not. Today there are still many trainers who use methods based on dominance, choke collars, leash pulling and other techniques based on fear or pain… and they do so because they do not have the adequate training for this job, since these methods have been obsolete since the last century. As this point is of vital importance, I am going to give some guidelines to identify this type of person:
- If he tells you that you treat your partner very well…
- If he talks to you about alpha males…
- If he tells you that you have to show him who is boss…
- If he tells you that the way to solve problems is to keep your dog in a cage all day…
- If your animal makes the slightest gesture that you don't like... RUN AWAY
It is very frustrating for qualified professionals to regularly see clients with problems aggravated by these types of false trainers. Dog and cat owners have paid a fortune and done things against their principles and intuition because a person who supposedly knew what they were doing encouraged them to treat their dog badly… and both the animals and the owners come to us devastated.
Training with aversive methods creates very serious emotional problems in animals and I can assure you that not a single person who uses these methods has adequate and up-to-date training to work in behavior modification.
Please do not stop reading the article Why not use punishment.
