In 2007, when I took my puppy to advanced puppy class, we had fun, despite my sometimes uneasy feeling about our dog trainer, whose nature struck me as dictatorial, and despite my gut telling me that there had to be a kinder way to train dogs. I barely paid attention to the other owners or to the other dogs in the class, for that matter. I was focused on training my puppy. That’s not what I experienced, though, when I started teaching dog training classes several years later.

One troubling thing I couldn’t help noticing was how self-conscious some of the dog owners were. If they weren’t worried about how they looked in front of everyone or if they weren’t seemingly uncomfortable with their technique, they were constantly comparing themselves and their dogs to others in class, competing against each other to see whose dog did best. It was ridiculous, considering that each class had (at most) ten owner-dog pairs, not to mention that I never handed out awards, but I guess that’s human nature.

If fragile egos weren’t enough to deal with, I was bombarded by dog owners who arrived early and stayed after class to ask about issues they were experiencing with their dogs at home. “What do I do when Buster attacks our vacuum cleaner?” “Princess won’t stop digging in the couch cushions and then jumping off the back of it. What do I do?” “Every time I open the front door, no matter how cautious I am, Freddy bolts out of it and runs down the street. I spent an hour last night, trying to get him to come back home. What can I do?”

The only thing I could do was supplement the dog training they received in class with in-home dog training lessons on the side. It was the only way to help them with their issues. Not long after that, I realized how unnecessary and ineffective dog training classes were and stopped offering them. I taught my first dog training class in 2014, taught my last one in 2015, terminated my lease, and have been teaching one-on-one dog training lessons ever since.

Find out more in my next blog: Dog Training Classes Vs. One-on-One Lessons…