This one may make some people angry, but it needs to be said 🤷🏼♀️
Because of my involvement with rescue, I am a member of countless Facebook groups for new dog owners.
Looking at any of them almost always causes me to feel despair.
A lot of owners post asking for behavioural and training help. Those posts always get bombarded with answers. But the other people on those pages are not professionals. The vast majority don’t have the right knowledge or experience to give sound advice. Most join because they are also struggling and themselves need help! The advice ranges from silly and useless to downright dangerous. In my opinion as a professional, it is external rare to see good, sensible advice on those pages.
Professionals train and perfect their skills for years to become a good dog trainer. You wouldn’t trust car repair advice from someone who isn’t a mechanic. Or electrical advice from anyone except an electrician. So why do we do this with dog training?
At best, the people posting have to wade through countless confusing and conflicting pieces of advice and get nothing out of it. At worst, they follow the unqualified advice and risk making things worse. They then often give up on the dog saying that they “tried everything” when they haven’t actually tried anything worthwhile.
People may say this is unfair to those who cannot afford professional help. But you don’t necessarily need to pay for a professional trainer*. Brilliant dog trainers are giving away highly valuable information for free on every online platform imaginable. It’s not hard to find good, useful information to address most questions if you take the time to search rather than posting on Facebook.
*For severe cases where safety is an issue and/or a dog is biting, always seek in-person help from a professional who has the skill and knowledge to truly help.
