Beware of the Board and Train

Board and train programs are highly marketed as being the best way to get your dog trained. Pay a trainer a high price and leave your dog with them for weeks on end to get back a “fully trained” dog. While the marketing may be good, the results often aren’t. I want to help you see the many red flags and prevent your dog from the trauma and you for the high price tag. 

When it comes to board and train programs in general I almost never suggest them to my clients. I used to offer board and train programs in my home and they were sometimes effective but it often starts with a client who doesn’t truly understand how real training success is built. The best training success always comes from you putting in the time and effort with your own dog. Not from a professional dog trainer taking the dog out of the home environment and training them without you. YOU ARE THE KEY to training. 

If you have recently brought a dog into your life this is definitely not the time to send your dog off to a board and train program. Your dog needs time to get to know you, your family, your home, your routine, your neighborhood. It can be extremely stressful and overwhelming for a dog to be in one home and then find themselves at a training facility only a few weeks later. If your new dog is struggling to adapt to their new life with you, the best thing you can do is hire a trainer to come to you. That way they can advise on what to do without disrupting your dog's feeling of safety and security. 

As I have already mentioned I almost never suggest board and trains to my clients because what ultimately happens is the dog is gone for 2- 4 weeks, the client is out a lump sum of money and the dog is really no better off than they were before. This is because your dog's ability to behave for the trainer almost never generalizes to how they behave with you. You need to be able to bond and communicate with your dog and that is not what is happening at a board and train program. Dogs aren’t robots that you can program, they are highly complicated emotional beings.

One of the most troubling parts of board and trains is the highly unethical things that are happening behind closed doors.  They are often kept in a crate for long hours, the trainer is not spending all day training your dog, if you are lucky the dog is getting one on one attention for 1-2 hours per day. Secondly most board and train programs are using highly aversive training techniques to punish unwanted behavior that leads to behavior suppression. In extreme cases dogs are being physically hurt and in a small percentage of cases, dogs have died at board and train facilities. 

Major red flags to watch out for. Any promise of guarantee that your dog will not do x,y or z when they return and a promise of “fully trained". An ethical trainer will not make these guarantees. Additionally any training facility that houses more than 5 dogs. Any more than that, these dogs are not going to be getting the one on one attention that you paid for. Another red flag to watch out for is trainers who are not transparent about what the hour by hour day is going to look like when your dog is in their care. You should not be paying a high price for your dog to spend the majority of their day in confinement. 

Green flags to watch out for when looking into board and trains. One, the trainer only takes on one dog at a time and they are treated as a part of the family in your trainer's home. When I offered boarding and training I only took 1 dog at a time and when I wasn’t working on training with them they were free to play, nap and live stress free in my home. Secondly your trainer is honest about being able to lay the foundation for training that you are going to have to keep up. I always did one on one sessions with my clients after the board and training to ensure the clients could keep up what I worked on with the dogs. Your trainer should also be transparent about the training methods they are going to use. A good trainer is not going to use aversive training tools like pinch collars and “e-collars”. They will be utilizing proven and ethical techniques that don’t cause pain. 

The truth is the board and trains exist because owners want quick fixes and there is a lot of money to be made by preying on owners' desires to “get the dog trained” without ever putting in the time and energy. Over the years I have had clients come to me who sent their dog to a board and train program only for their dogs to come back in worse condition then when they went. Not to mention the price my clients had to pay for their dogs to suffer at the hands of a really shitty dog trainer. 

Do your homework, ask the right questions and be clear that a board and train program is not going to forgo the work that you have to put into training your dog.

- Rachel Laurie Harris CPDT-KA