I am seriously considering working with a "professional" to have Sasha evaluated for some of her aggression issues with other dogs. She has had several "bad" experiences, have made progress, and want to get over the last hump. We have the typical idiots where I live that don't have control over their dogs...hence the bad experiences. The person who I was thinking about using is a Law Enforcement canine trainer.

Is there any specific "questions" that I should ask/consider to make sure they the best fit for me?

I can provide their names and website in a PM. They are local to the Cleveland area.

Thanks in advance,
Dave

Shoot me a PM with the details on who it is.

david, unless the K9 trainer is a certified trainer, DO NOT ask him for advice. its like asking a vet a training question, just cause they are around dogs all day, so they must know, bad idea, search on line for a CERTIFIED trainer, some one who knows about dogs and has experience, DO NOT go to a pet psycholigist there is no such thing!!! shop around for a good trainer one who can demo his or her dogs, explain things to you about you and your dog and your needs. remember to shop around your not going to buy the first car you sit in? your going to test drive a few. i just noticed your from clevland go to NATINAL K9 in columbus there the best they have a school for people to become cert. dog trainers they do everything.


ED's COMMENTS ADDED HERE:

I seldom add comments to a post but this deserves one

While I agree that Vets who know something about dog training are a rare bird - very rare in fact. The same goes for certified trainers.

WHO IS TO SAY SOMEONE IS CERTIFIED??? WHO IS THE GOVERNING BODY???

Just as there is no such thing as a pet psycholigist in my opinion the concept of a certified trainer is the same. There are so many goofy so-called dog schools out there that are nothing more than RIP-OFFS who take kidfs money and send them out in the world to be a CERTIFIED TRAINER that I want to puke!!!

I certainly include NATIONAL K9 as one of these scam operations. Maybe you donated to them. For that you have my condolences. It wasnt that long ago that a graduating CERTIFIED STUDENT was the next instructor for the next class. GIVE ME A BREAK. Can you spell SCAM ???

So Michael I suggest you TONE DOWN YOUR ADVICE here.

Michael, I'm wondering exactly WHAT certification you are referring to a trainer has to have to be good. As for there being no such thing as a pet psychologist, well that's not true either. Cesar Milan is one of the most well known pet psychologists.
There is never harm in asking for advice from a trainer, sometimes the advice they give you tells you what kind of trainer they are! As for "certifications" well, I have yet to see a "cert" that makes a trainer have common sense or actually know how to deal with a true aggression problem.

 Quote:

search on line for a CERTIFIED trainer

I'm sorry, that is the biggest piece of bulls... advice I have heard in a long time, at least a week or so.

ceaser is a farse, its amazing what you can do when you have money, sorry to dissapoint. many of my clients have gone to a "pet psycholigist" and have spent up to and more than $500.00 for 1 visit, to be told something they already know. my step sister had one come to her house, she paid $450.00 for a visit, to be told her dog has a "serious jumping up disorder" didnt fix the problem, thats all she said , she was in the house for an hour and observed, she was laughin all the way to the bank. go online and look for dog training schools I went to National K9 in ohio, they have three and six week courses. the school was an amazing experience and i learned more than i could of imagined, it is one of the top schools in the country. they have combined 70 plus years experiance training. iv talked to a lot of so called "trainers" that give out misinformation. who are not certified. you woulndt go to an uncertified mechaninc or uncertified doctor or uncertified dentised or uncertified groomer etc. etc...



Ed's Comments Edited in:

This is exactly what I spoke about in my earlier comment to your post. In 3 to 6 weeks you become a certified trainer at Natioanl K9??? This is a joke. National K9 is a joke !!!

No one goes to any school for 6 weeks and becomes a dog trainer that is qualified to teach other people.

There are two dog schools in this country that I know of that I consider legit - The Tom Roase School in High Ridge Mo and Triple Crown in Austin Texas. These schools have qualified trainers and long term courses.

Michael, which aspect of Cesar Millan's approach would cause you to consider him to be a 'farce'?

David,
Certifications mean *nothing* in dog training, there are no set standards for them at all and some ( actually many ) of them can be bought by a wannabe with *no* experience at all.

Trainers that flash around their "certifications" almost always have no titled dogs and I've found that they have far less experience and skills then the trainers that just brought themselves up through the years learning on different dogs and *titling* them ( titling a dog in various venues at least shows that the trainers were able to train and handle a dog to a well-established set of rules, something the "certification" trainers lack )

I have found that the graduates from the Tom Rose School of Dog Training and Triple Crown Academy have a strong set of skills and those certifications definitely are worthy of respect.

National K9? Pffft....here's a link to a previous discussion about them:
http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/188891/page/0/fpart/1

A recent thread about National K9 ...
http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/186754/page/1#Post186754

The difference is that certification for a mechanic or dentistry etc is regulated and up to a standard. Any idiot can become a certified trainer. I have yet to actually meet a certified trainer that isn't an idiot, yet all the best world class trainers I've met have no schooling or certification. Funny how that works. There are con artists all over the dog world and a BS piece of paper that says "certified" doesn't make them any better.