FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
and general information regarding residential training
WHAT IS RESIDENTIAL TRAINING?
Residential Training involves your dog coming to stay with their trainer for a fully immersive, intensive training/behavioural modification program that will continue for a number of weeks. The duration of their stay will vary depending on a number of factors such as the dogs age, how many issues need to be rectified and how severe those issues are.
Our Residential Programs are usually four weeks long although longer programs may be recommended for especially difficult or delicate cases.
Unlike most other residential trainers, we much prefer to take in just one or two dogs at a time for our in house training and take great pride in doing so.
This allows us to spend considerably more time and energy on your dog each day than we could ever possibly do were we taking in several other dogs at the same time who also required extensive training.
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We do not offer two week residentials as it is clear that this is not adequate time to fully proof new behaviours in a variety of scenarios, nor is it a long enough period of time to override your dogs previous reinforcement history and fully unpick bad habits whilst ensuring the long-term success of new ones.
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WHAT ARE THE PROS TO CHOOSING A RESIDENTIAL TRAINING PROGRAM?
There are a LOT of advantages to utilising quality residential training and many of the alleged pitfalls are irrelevant if you pick a reliable trainer that is a good fit for your dogs needs.
Much like going to university, your dog will be receiving multiple lessons per day on various different -but relevant- subjects and so will learn far more rapidly than if you were to take him or her to weekly training classes.
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At RSDT, we are very careful to discuss your hopes and wishes and will tailor your dogs training program very specifically with those goals in mind.
This means that your dog will be learn precisely what you want and need him to learn and that will of course vary from one owner to another.
For example: Some owners want us to train a solid settle in a busy setting such as a pub so that the dog can join them on trips to their favourite local. Others may require a solid heel around things their dog finds especially distracting such as pigeons or small children.
Despite the cost, residential training offers very good value for money as your dog receives an enormous amount of professional, proven training in a very short space of time.
WHAT ARE THE CONS TO CHOOSING A RESIDENTIAL TRAINING PROGRAM?
Sending your dog away and entrusting their care to a stranger, even a qualified one can be very hard. Your dog will be away from you for a number of weeks (most good companies offer four to six week placements like we do) and whilst they will be out and about, having a great time learning and having fun, it can be extremely difficult as a pet owner to not have your dog by your side.
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RSDT will keep you up to date with regular photo and video updates throughout each week, as often as we can so that you can see your dogs progress.
You will no doubt miss them, but your dog will be having a blast and love and attention are not in short supply here. For the duration of your dogs stay, we treat them as one of our own.
Whilst it offers excellent value for money, it can be expensive. There is no denying that it can be a lot of money upfront.
Residential training is an investment worth making however as it equips your dog with a lot of essential life skills very rapidly and our handover lessons and aftercare will ensure that you have any gaps in your knowledge filled in too and learn how to handle and train your dog as well as how to troubleshoot any potential problems going forward.
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Irrespective of what company you use, you will need to listen to the handover instructions and continue to implement the skills you are taught in those lessons to enable you to maintain your dogs training at the highest possible level.
If you do not take the handover lessons seriously, there is a risk that your dog will begin to regress.
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The last thing to be aware of is that not all behavioural problems are completely fixable. This is especially true if the dog is a breed or mix of breeds that is or are genetically predisposed to exhibit the behaviour that you are seeking to eradicate.
Some behavioural problems can also be caused or exacerbated by various medical conditions and this is why whilst training may very well still prove to be essential further down the line, it is always prudent to have your dog thoroughly assessed by a vet to rule out anything health related prior to sending your dog for training.
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This is also why we and many other residential or board and train type facilities will ask a lot of questions about your dog before we even consider taking your money and booking them in. We aren't being nosy or judgemental. We are doing our best to ensure we can give you an honest opinion on what can realistically be achieved in a four to six week period.
RSDT does not pretend to be able to wave a magic wand and completely unravel your dogs genetic wiring although in most cases, we can certainly make such dogs far more simple to manage safely and we can make them much more pleasant animals to share your life with.
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As always, a good trainer will be honest if after thoroughly assessing the dog they feel that any issue presented to them is not something they are likely to be able to permanently undo for any reason.
HOW DO I KNOW WHO TO PICK?
Firstly, look for a trainer who is offering what you need.
For example, we would immediately refer someone that contacted us wanting their dog to be trained for personal protection or one of the bite sports to a good friend and colleague who specialises in exactly this sort of work. Such training requires an extremely specific skill set and know-how to do if it is to be done safely and not turn the dog into what is tantamount to a sentient loaded gun.
We would simply not be what such a person is looking for.
If however someone is looking for a trainer to instill good, solid, reliable obedience for an adult or puppy (and we LOVE training puppies which many residential trainers don't!), recall for a very prey-driven dog who bolts off lead or chases wildlife or to dramatically improve aggressive resource-guarding, then we're going to welcome that dog with open arms as those are the sort of things we love doing, are highly experienced with and excel at.
WILL MY DOG LISTEN TO ME IF YOU TRAINED HIM/HER?
So long as you remain consistent with what the trainer teaches you at your hand over, -and that's something to ask about when looking into trainers so that you can be sure you'll receive at least one hand over session- then yes, absolutely.
Good trainers will always be expecting to train you too.
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All of our training packages include at least one thorough hand over session at the end of your dogs training with us and we always provide thorough aftercare along with a written training guide specific to your dog.
During your hand over session or sessions, you will be shown what your dog has learned and will be taught how to handle him or her correctly to prevent any regression, how to time rewards, troubleshoot potential problems in future and build and maintain your dogs engagement with you.
We will also discuss and explain how and when to utilise corrective measures if this is a relevant discussion for your dog.
We very much encourage you to take advantage of our free aftercare and handover sessions after your dog has returned home to ensure that the training we have implemented sticks and your dog maintains a good level of obedience going forward.
It is worth remembering that most working service dogs be they military or police K9s as well as Assistance Dogs (e.g. Guide, Hearing, Seizure Detection and other Medical Alert Dogs) are not trained by their handlers but are instead intensively trained by professionals before then being placed in the hands of a lay person.
The same rules and concepts that apply to them, also apply to professionally training pet dogs too.
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Professional training works.
HOW CAN I BE SURE MY DOG WILL BE PROPERLY LOOKED AFTER?
It is understandably very daunting to hand your precious dog over to someone, especially for any length of time. ESPECIALLY when they are almost certainly a stranger to you at first and to then trust them to care for your pet like you would.
That said, any good residential trainer is offering that service because they truly love what they do. That includes all the aspects of day to day dog care.
We are highly skilled, highly experienced animal welfare professionals who excel at what we do.
THINGS TO BE AWARE OF BEFORE SENDING YOUR DOG AWAY
Whilst it is true that almost all dogs will thrive under a skilled residential trainer and benefit immensely, this doesn't automatically make sending your dog away the perfect answer for absolutely every dog or situation. A good residential trainer will always be honest if they feel your dog will not benefit from being "boot camped".
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Whilst residential training is excellent to teach and proof obedience and manners and unpick most problem behaviours very rapidly, it doesn't mean that you as the owner will receive back a robot dog who never steps a foot out of line again.
Aside from the fact that most of us do not wish to have a dog who has been utterly shut down and is suddenly devoid of all personality, training is an ongoing process that will almost always need at least some tweaking, refreshing and certainly reinforcing throughout the dogs life and it is very important that you are aware of this before sending your dog away.
It is also true that there is little point in any of us training your dog to work beautifully for us, only to wordlessly hand him or her over to you without bothering to teach YOU the handling and training skills required to keep on top of and even continue to improve on all of that hard work.
For this reason, all good residential trainers will be providing some form of aftercare service.
We go the extra mile by having multiple people work your dog during their stay with us. This makes it far easier for your dog to generalise their obedience to everyone they live with and not just behave for their primary care giver.
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HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
Residential training can be expensive.
There is no arguing that the lump sum required for a block of intensive training is never cheap, but it should be worth every penny.
Prices for the average four week long block of training range anywhere from between £1500 and £5000 depending on the trainer, the type of training required, the area the trainer lives in among other factors.
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Our prices start at £2000 for 4 weeks of intensive training.
Going back to pricing, to put the cost into perspective, it takes up a vast amount of the trainers time and is never convenient 9-5 hours. We are after all providing all of the usual routine care that you would be doing every day for your dog on top of all the training required.
Certainly working days here often start very early with 5am to 6am being reasonably standard.
Rarely do we get to do the last few bits and bobs of our night time dog routine and settle them down to bed for the night before 10pm. It's a lot of work, seven days a week and even on a quiet day, the days are long and often physically and mentally taxing.
If your dog is still in need of house breaking or has health problems and therefore needs to get up several times in the night or is a breed requiring extensive grooming you can also add that to time spent on them too.
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So whilst it sounds like a vast sum of money on paper, you must also consider that this is a trainers career, it is 7 days a week, most of us have spent and continue to spend a lot of money on continually studying and increasing our knowledge with regular CPD courses and additional qualifications.
Frankly, we also have to earn enough to keep our bills paid, our own animals fed and cared for and to be able to justify not just all those obvious work hours spent out and about actively training, the perhaps somewhat less obvious hours spent writing assessment reports, training plans, handover manuals, the time and money spent on keeping dog areas clean and hygienic, grooming and feeding dogs who are with us for full days of training or residentials etc, but also the expenses incurred by taking your dog to places to train in public.
Certainly these day trips which here we do as many times a week as that particular dog can comfortably handle, eat up a large whack of what we charged to take the dog in.
When you break it down, residentials usually work out to be excellent value for money, especially given the rapid changes they provide.
WHAT SETS RSDT APART FROM OTHER CHOICES?
Unless there is prior agreement, we will only be taking in your dog and one other for in-house training for the entire duration of his or her stay.
We do not generally train more than two residential dogs at a time where most Residential Trainers may take in 6 or more.
It is vital to us that your dog gets the maximum amount of our time and energy not just to put them on the road to success as quickly as possible which is of course the aim, but also that we have the time to spend with them (and of course our own dogs!) outside of their training sessions.
We play as well as train (play is often a huge part of the learning process for mammals of all species).
We go for walks and don't just train in a bland, empty field or building with no distractions.
It is essential to your dogs success that they learn how to generalise their new skills in a wide range of environments and situations and we will have multiple trainers working with your dog to ensure their new manners really stick once home. This real-world training and exposure is what makes the training stick and be truly reliable.
We go out in public and learn how to settle calmly and be comfortable and polite in all manner of places.
We use public transport (if applicable/safe/the dog can cope).
We include our Intensive Training Days as part of your dogs stay as these are a superb environment for them to continue to learn in and for us to put their newfound skills to the test each week.
Cafes? Pubs? Garden centres? Outdoor events and markets? Hardware stores? Basically, if dogs are welcome and we'd take our dogs there and as soon as they can handle it, we're taking yours too.
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Residential dogs live in our home as part of our family, just as they do in yours.
For the duration of their stay here, they are treated exactly as we treat our own. They will receive levels of love and affection appropriate to their personality, safe treats, toys and chews as well as plenty of down-time to counterbalance all that work time. We take dogs in for training like this as house manners, calmness around normal household distractions and all the passive training that goes into becoming a good pet cannot be achieved in the same way with only hourly sessions or Intensive Training Days.
They will go to as many public settings, venues and events as we feel they can cope comfortably with.
Where appropriate, they will be able to interact with our own dogs, whilst also being provided with an area of their very own to relax in away from canine intrusion.
If your dog would benefit and you would like us to do the leg work for you, your dogs diet can be carefully changed or modified whilst they are here.
This is often especially beneficial for dogs with weight issues, allergies and even behavioural problems which can be exacerbated by diets high in artificial colourings and preservatives.
We are of course comprehensively insured by the market leader for animal professionals.
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You will receive a go-home bag of goodies that has been entirely tailored for your dog.
We generally include treats, training toys, discount codes for trusted treat and food suppliers, a bandana, a certificate of completion and a full behavioural assessment and training maintenance guide written specifically for your dog.
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You will receive at least one hand over session and we always offer at least one follow up private training consultation (to be used within a year of your dogs stay).
