Why Choose Comet Canine as Your Dog Trainer?
by Nish Nalbandian, President, Comet Canine
One of the most common questions I hear is "Why should I choose Comet Canine to train my dog?" The best answer I can give is to compare our services and costs to the leading choices:
1. Traditional Obedience Classes
Classes with 10 dogs and only one trainer are common. Over the course of six weeks you get less than 36 minutes of one-on-one/personal training time with that trainer. If your class costs $100, then you are paying about $200 per hour for that small amount of one-on-one time with a trainer. It can be difficult to get a dog to perform or understand a new command in the group environment. Groups are better for ongoing training rather than for initial teaching of the dog and handler.
Comet's Private Training is done face-to-face, one-on-one with an experienced, well-trained and prepared professional trainer. If you pay for a 5 session class ($425) with a Comet trainer, you get a full five hours of time with that trainer, focused all on you and your dog. The cost is about $85 per hour. A much better deal than even the cheapest group classes offered at big box pet stores, Comet Private Training will get you much further in a shorter period of time.
2. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Style Veterinary Behaviorists
ABA behaviorists offer a two-hour "interview" or "counseling session". The cost is somewhere around $200. The behaviorist will take your pet's history and try to determine a set diagnosis based on your explanations and their observations. The problem is that your dog is in a strange place and may not exhibit the behaviors you are trying to fix. In addition, the 'solution' that most ABA style behaviorists give you is to tell you to perform a series of exercises based on a pre-existing protocol to 'treat' the problem. These protocols are generally rigid and not custom tailored to your dog. They may or may not show you a little bit about how to follow the protocols and then they send you on your way to work on your own. Basically you've spent $200 (not counting the follow up visit) for them to tell you to do something that may or may not work and left you on your own to do it/not do it, without coaching or assistance. In addition, their protocols are often imbalanced toward using positive reinforcement only. Sometimes this is a valid approach, but in the vast majority of cases, a balanced approach providing both reinforcement and corrections is a better approach, getting results faster. One example is in the case of fear. They teach you to introduce the dog slowly to a situation using food rewards. But most often the dogs are getting reinforced for being fearful. What the science actually shows is that simply introducing the dog to the fearful stimulus and not letting him escape, avoid, or hide from it will results in a faster result.
Comet Private Behavior Modification sessions are conducted one-on-one with you and you dog, at your home. The trainer is there to show you how to handle the dog, not just give you suggestions on what to do. We will actually coach you through the training process and show you how to handle the inevitable problems/regressions/mistakes that will come up. Often, things do not go as smoothly as the protocols lead you to believe. Instead of leaving you alone to work it out with no support, we are there to coach you through it.
If you do their two $200 office visits, you just paid $400, and got maybe four hours of time in the office in a clinical setting. That's $100 per hour, for counseling, for sitting and talking to you. With a Comet trainer you get five hours of face time for $425, about the same price, and you get both counseling, as well as practical, hands on training on how to modify this behavior, and manage it.
3. Franchised or 'Big Box Store' Training Services
Any franchised dog training service can offer good pricing. But that's about it. The trainer you get may or may not have experience. After all, anyone can buy the franchise whether they have dog experience or not. For one national dog training franchise, you can become a dog trainer with as little as two weeks of instruction. This particular franchise also claims to have their own unique brand of training, and they claim to guarantee their services for a lifetime. Some of their trainers do have more experience, having been trainers before coming to the franchise. But even they are forced to work within the training parameters set by the home office. The type of training they offer is not really training, but a style of relating to dogs. Your dog will not be trained to walk on leash without pulling, sit on command despite distractions, or stop chasing squirrels. In fact, they don't actually teach you how to train your dog. They use one method, and hope that it works with all dogs.
The same is true with the popular 'big box' pet store trainers. They are considered 'accredited' trainers after as little as three weeks of study. They are trained to use, and only allowed to use, one training method and are very limited in what they can deal with. In fact, the reason the stores offer training is not to make money on the training (the training is very cheap and the trainers very poorly paid), but to bring people into the stores to purchase supplies.
Comet Canine Private Training is unique in that we offer a truly comprehensive range of training techniques. Without bragging, we know just about all the methods out there. We know the science and have years of practical, hands on applied experience. No Comet trainer has less than five years experience, and we all have experience in training dogs to the very highest levels for police, Assistance, Detection, and Protection work. We all have experience with all sorts of breeds and pet dog programs, and we've all studied with a wide range of knowledgeable and experienced trainers. We are constantly learning from all sources, whether it is books, videos, competitors, seminars, new training ideas, or newly published science. We don't claim to know everything, but we are vastly more knowledgeable than the average trainer. Our trainers compete on the international level in obedience, tracking, and protection competition, and we place the highest quality service dogs around the nation and overseas.
4. The Latest 'Revolutionary' Approach to Dog Training
Electric Collars, Dog Whispering, Operant Conditioning, Dog Operating Systems, Gadgets, Clickers, Dialogue, Light Hands, and the list goes on. These are the tricks and gimmicks and fads that trainers use to sell their services to less knowledgeable consumers. Each of these approaches has a place and value, but none work on every dog and none stand on their own. There is nothing new under the sun. Modern dog training is truly modern only when it integrates all the available ideas and methods out there, and takes advantage of all the tools available. We don't use the same tools for every job. We don't use the same methods for every dog. The principles of dog training are simple, and they have been known for hundreds of years. In the early part of the 20th century, science found a way to describe this phenomena in the language of 'operant and classical conditioning', but even this science is limited. Dogs do things because they get something out of it, and they stop doing things because they stop getting something out of it. We provide appropriate consequences for behaviors we like or don't like and we increase or decrease the likelihood of that behavior happening in the future. It is that simple. There are only four possible consequences. Using them skillfully takes a lot of time and practice. Theoretical knowledge is good, and helps describe the phenomena in front of us, but there is no substitute for hands on experience and practice. There are no new techniques or methods; they are all variations on a theme. Electric collars are new technology, but you apply them the same way that you'd apply the four consequences in the past. The technology simply allows for some greater freedoms in training. Let me repeat, there is nothing revolutionary in dog training. Clickers, operant conditioning, remote collars, dog whispering, or dialogue techniques are simply variations on a theme, and again, each has a place in the panoply of tools at our disposal. The best trainers use a lot of different techniques, and are very efficient. Trainers who are sold on their one particular brand of training are constantly making excuses for why it didn't work on your dog, or why you need to keep paying them money for months and months.
The bottom line truth is that most problems are solved by good solid obedience training, perhaps combined with some old fashioned counter-conditioning or desensitization. Most problems can be managed within five sessions, sometimes it takes longer, sometimes less, but five sessions is a good average. Dragging you on for weeks or months because your dog doesn't fit their system and charging you more money per session is unfair and expensive.
Now, if you want to move on to more advanced obedience, you can spend as much time as you want, but still, your trainer should be showing you the principles, not just making you repeat techniques.
We believe in providing our customers with the best service possible. To solve your problem or create reliable obedience, providing you with results in the shortest time possible, and at the lowest price possible. So, when you look over our pricing, keep in mind — just because it's cheaper, doesn't mean it works.
Did you know that you should try not to repeat commands? Learn from Comet Canine's dog training tips and advice in our online dog training articles.
