K-9iQ In Home Dog Training, Dog Obedience and Dog Behaviour Modification and Training.

What Are Your Training Methods

This is a Great Question and one that is not easily answered, but let me try for you.

A lot of trainers look at symptoms and then either Reward or Punish what they see. I think this is an overly simplistic view on how dogs should be trained.

While these methods are OK for simplistic training, they don't actually help to teach the dog how to find solutions on its own through setting up Great, Safe and Constructive Learning Environments.

Good dog training is NOT about Micro-Managing your dog!

Dogs do not learn through Intimidation, nor do they learn through Bribery.

What I offer is a "Balanced" approach where I teach your dog how to manage Stress, Pressure and Conflict so that it can make better decisions that Empower the dog with confidence.

If you like giving your dog genuine affection and enjoy having a dog that loves to work with you because it Trusts YOU, then you will love my methods.

Who Comes To Our Home

This is a simple question to answer.

You get ME and nobody else!

I have seen what happens when dog trainers employ other trainers. The first thing that suffers is attention to client needs, consistency, empathy to change things as you go to make clients feel better.

When you email, text, call or contact me through YouTube, you are dealing with me.

Yes this makes getting a hold of me a little tricky when I am busy, but the trade off is that you know that you are dealing with the person that will be training you and your precious dog, and then answering questions you may have after the training while you are putting the work into making your dog amazing.

Why Don't You Charge By The Hour

Quite simply because I don't want to rip people off!

Most dog trainers charge what appears to be "modest" fees by the hour, and then they charge for each and every hour and your total fee is NOT agreed ahead of time. There are others that charge ludicrous hourly fees and call themselves "premium" dog trainers.

If this is not bad enough, unless you can speak "dog" it is impossible to be briefed by you about your issues, investigate what is really going on, see how the dog is dealing with the issues and then develop the training and teach you how to carry out the training all in one hour.

I can assure you that if you engage a Dog Trainer that is happy to do an initial hour long training session, it will be Simplistic, Symptom focused and a total Waste of money.

My sessions are based on a min 2hr time which is not "clock watched" meaning it often exceeds this time at no extra cost and is for a fee that is fixed and agreed ahead of time.

The only thing I want to worry about when I do a session with you is to take my time, ask the right questions, set up good training basics and get the right results to help your dog.

If I take longer to achieve this, it will not be at your expense.

Can I Take Notes In The Session

I can do better than that for you!

I strongly encourage you to document the session as best suits your learning style.

In order to make things simple I offer the following;

Within reason, the specific exercises I need you to practice are allowed to be videoed on your phone or iPad. I have found this to be a very useful reference tool for you after our session.

I encourage the use of a Voice Recorder to record content that may not need to be videoed. This will save you taking notes allowing you uninterrupted focus during the session with me.

Where appropriate, I will issue via email, specific PDF documents or a detailed Video of additional information that will be useful for you going forward.

I lecture and run seminars for Adults and appreciate that not all people learn the same way.

Given I am training your dog and working with you, the focus is on making sure that I find a way of communication that you can associate with.

All this is included in each and every one of my sessions at no extra cost to you.

What If I Need Help After

The first two weeks after our session are the most important. What is needed is doing the work, being patient and having realistic expectations.

My intent is to help you to understand your dog and the steps forward that are needed for ongoing success.

After the training session, some clients can be a little overwhelmed with information and uncertain about what to do next.

For a nominated homework period (as discussed with you on the day), I encourage you to stay in touch with me while practicing the exercises so that I can keep you focused, confident and address any questions or concerns you may still have.

This can be done by via Text or via Email free of charge.

This homework period many vary in length depending on the severity of the behaviour/s being addressed.

There is no additional charge for this and again is highly encouraged so that we can get the best possible results.

If after the homework period a follow up is needed, I can then target specific issues you may still be having or simply if you desire, take your dog to higher levels of success.

What Don't You Do For Clients

While I am here to assist people with the problems they are having with their dogs, there are some things I am not prepared to do either because they are illegal, or simply not respectful to dogs in general.

I am sorry if any of the following offends people, but I want to make sure that clients are aware of what I can and cant help with. Don't despair though, there are trainers that will gladly assist you with the following.

These are;

Training dogs to protect you. While I do not agree with current legislation, this training is sadly illegal in Victoria unless you are a Licenced Person and as a result I am not in a position to offer this type of training to the general public. If you live in other state in Australia where this is permitted, I can assist you.

Teaching dogs to be walked by a single person pushing a pram. While on the surface this seems harmless, should an incident occur between your dog and another dog, the potential for something serious to happen to your dog or child is too high to risk.

Teaching dogs to walk off leash. While people are free to follow Council By-Laws or not the teaching of dogs to walk nicely off leash may encourage or facilitate this activity which in all Melbourne council areas is not permitted on any streets.

Treating dogs to be fashion statements. I have recently been asked to have healthy, active and very normal dogs to be trained to be carried in hand bags, pushed around in prams and or strollers in effect to be treated as surrogate children.

Sorry, I just respect dogs far too much to do this to them.