Someone called today and asked why prices (and a couple other peoples prices) were higher than some other dog trainers in the area). I thought it was worth posting on here. Dog training is an unregulated profession. Anyone can call themselves a dog trainer. There IS an international 3rd party certifying organization (the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers) which has testing for knowledge and training ability, a code of ethics and required continuing education units but one does not have to belong to it in order to be a dog trainer. Some of us locally have taken training programs (Karen Pryor Academy) which also has a code of ethics and continuing education units as part of their certification process. So, some people have mandatory professional development that they have to attend, as well as licensing fees, as well as liability insurance.....this makes our costs higher. Some of us also do this full time so we dont have other jobs to subsidize our training businesses. I would like to think that the certification, continual professional development and code of ethics means that we pass along the best dog training possible in 2014 to our students, but that is always in the eye of the beholder. It does, unfortunately, make our prices higher. Many of us do stay in touch with each other and try to keep our prices similar but we still need to cover our expenses.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 22:23:27 +0000