The VSA Blog

As a dog trainer, you know how important it is for dogs to have enriching experiences in and around their home. A client’s own backyard can be a marvelous place to begin! Outdoor canine enrichment is an opportunity to engage a dog’s senses, provide mental and physical stimulation, and exercise their natural behaviors. Discover five ways your clients can add beneficial enrichment to their outside space while still protecting their cherished companion from potential outdoor hazards.

Help your clients make the most of life with their dog beginning from the earliest days. These tips will help them maintain an active friendship with their dog at all stages of life.

Taking walks and playing in the backyard are great opportunities for exercise, but indoor enrichment activities can go the extra mile to help transform a bored, destructive dog into a happier, calmer one.

As a professional dog trainer, your clients are your livelihood, filling your classes and private training calendar with needed income. Many clients can also become your biggest supporters, referral generators, and even close friends. By reaching out with a heartfelt thanks, you’ll strengthen those relationships, help build your business, and get a lot of personal satisfaction and joy from your work, as well.

The family dog is so closely involved in the everyday activities of a household that it’s easy for people to view them as a childlike family member. Unlike a child, however, dogs can’t say “no” when they are frightened or anxious, and their ways of expressing...

As an aspiring or professional dog trainer, you certainly want to be a leap and a bound ahead of the crowd to establish yourself as an expert in your profession. Of course you want to be sure you are offering your clients and their dogs the best possible guidance. But...

Every trainer quickly learns that dog training isn’t just about the dogs. It means teaching people, too. Your clients need to wrap up each dog training session with enough canine savvy to guide their dog toward success. When they get home, your client may have to...

Prospective dog training clients have no doubt heard a lot of conversation on television and online about different dog training techniques and tools. When they ask why you train the way you do, remember that you have a positive dog trainer superpower…

  Dog training is a hands-on profession, but not all teaching needs to take place in a class or a home training session. Print materials that clients can take home and social media resources you share online help strengthen your learning connection with your...

  You’ve heard people generalize dogs by size, right? "Get a little dog -- you can take them everywhere” or “Big dogs belong in the country where they’ll have room to run.” There are a lot of long-standing beliefs about both giant and pint-sized pups. Some are...