@CoubousAndTourmalet I am intrigued to know who the expert is training the vets. I wouldn't mind someone cold and aloof with people, but I would want them to be interested in the dogs. I am also curious as to who you saw. Does her name begin with C?
Unfortunately the dog training world is totally unregulated and anyone can set themselves up as one. Two new ones popped up near me a few years ago - they did on line courses during covid. I wouldn't touch either of them with barge pole.
Here's my history of dog trainers.
Took my first puppies to the local dog training school. It was a bit mixed. They taught the 'need to be alpha dog' crap, but also used treats for training and no punishments. As a first time dog owner, I found it useful.
One of my dogs became reactive and I found a behaviourist called Marie Miller. She was brilliant. Taught me all about dog body language and behaviour. I think she was on of the first people in this country to use TTouch. She was hands on with my dogs and would demonstrate training methods with them. I had 1-to-1s and group training sessions with her.
Two of my friends then set up Dog Communication in Surrey, so we used to go there. That was a different set up, as they use teaching dogs to teach other dogs how to interact with each other. They're excellent at understanding and explaining dog behaviour. A lot of the dogs they see are reactive, so they aren't always hands on. But if the dogs are people friendly, then they are. They are very much dog people.
Since moving to Scotland, I have been to two trainers.
One is force free and uses treats. He is very hands on, chatty and down to earth. He knows bits about dog behaviour, but I am not convinced by everything he says. We went for 1-to-1 general obedience, agility and hoopers, which we enjoyed.
However, his puppy training group class was shit. We did about ten minutes of training and 50 minutes of socialising. Not what I paid for! I also went to a group socialisation session he put on once. All dogs had been to training with him and were deemed suitable. Unfortunately there were two incidents where P was duffed up by young males. No biting, but she was pinned to the floor as they had a go at her and had to be dragged off. He partly blamed P for being too submissive and said she needed to stand up for herself. I told him to fuck off and stop victim blaming. I ran this incident past my behaviourist friend and she said some submissive dogs do get duffed up, but only by bullies and it wasn't P's fault. To add, P has never had any problem with any dog we have met in public. She really has excellent manners and communication skills.
The other trainer was a gundog person. He used some aversive training methods, as lots of gundog trainers do. But he was happy for me to ignore those parts and do it my way instead. Things like, he uses slip leads and I stuck with a harness. He would push a dog into a sit position, whereas I would reward one with a treat.
He wasn't so much hands on - although that may have been just my dogs. He did handle the others in the group. But if he'd have done a 'pop' on P's lead as roughly as he did to a GWP, I'd have punched him in the face. He was friendly towards P though and would fuss her when she went to him.
There are three trainers locally who I wouldn't go to. They all use slip leads, e collars and spray bottles. And one has been seen to knee a dog on a couple of occasions.
I think I'd go for attitude as being more important than experience. We all need to start somewhere. They would need to genuinely like dogs, even if they're not keen on people.
For a behaviourist, I'd look for relevant qualifications. And they'd need to be registered with either APDT, ABTC or PACT.
God that was long. Well done if you got to the end of it. 😂