This course begins with a study of the six fundamental canine personality types and the characteristics and temperament of over 100 different breeds of dogs. In addition, students learn how to evaluate a dog’s personality, temperament, aptitude, and how to apply that knowledge in training. With the assistance of our instructors, students learn techniques and proper training equipment application used for on and off-leash obedience.

Because most undesirable dog behavior grows from a lack of communication between dog and owner, students learn how to establish an effective line of communication between dog and owner through proper handling and obedience commands. Throughout this course students are provided with the contributing causes and solutions to many canine related behavior problems.

Throughout this course students will also be exposed to in-depth units related to puppy development. Students will learn how a puppy’s personality develops and the importance of proper socialization. The process of temperament testing a litter of puppies will be covered. They will also learn the importance of establishing a puppy pre-school class that is designed to teach the puppy owner’s role in raising a well-mannered and well-behaved dog.

Students will learn how to maintain a healthy dog. They gain the ability to recognize the most common communicable diseases and internal or external parasites that afflict dogs. It is important for a trainer to be able to identify a dog that needs to see a veterinarian for an illness as opposed to pursuing training for a behavior problem. During this course students will receive instruction from a licensed veterinarian and have an opportunity to have their canine health related questions answered.

Students will also receive assistance in planning, opening, and operating their own training business. The following breakdown of topics represents a combination of classroom lectures, practical application of instruction in supervised workshops, instructor observation, and independent study sessions.

Basic Obedience
This unit provides:

• Detailed study of canine personalities and effective training approaches
• Owner/dog evaluations, lessons, and observations
• Training methods and techniques
• Proper application of training tools and equipment
• How to teach and use obedience commands for everyday life, including Heel, Sit, Down, Stay, Come, Stand, and Finish
• How obedience training relates to everyday dog behavior problems, effective communication, and the foundation for more advanced training
• Opportunities to work with and observe different breeds, ages, and personalities of dogs

Advanced Obedience
Building from the material presented in the Basic Obedience unit, Advanced Obedience introduces:

• Methods for training a dog to work from hand signals and distraction diversification
• Techniques for off-leash obedience commands
• Use of a place mat command in which a dog must stay in a designated area

Behavior Modification
Students will study the causes and remedies of common behavioral problems such as housetraining, chewing, jumping, barking, digging, running away, dog fighting, aggression, and many other forms of unwanted behavior. Individual case histories are reviewed in class to help students understand how dogs develop unwanted behaviors and how these behaviors can be prevented and corrected.

In this unit students are also exposed to a variety approaches to assist dogs with socialization and confidence related problems and behaviors. Special emphasis is placed on dealing with various forms of aggression directed towards dogs, other animals, and people.

Utility Training
Utility training compliments obedience training and behavior modification by providing timid and shy dogs with confidence-building exercises. It also prepares confident dogs for civil work within law enforcement, search teams, and assisting the disabled. Students will learn how to safely teach dogs how to jump over obstacles, climb, navigate on moving or unstable objects, and other skills that may be required of dogs in civil duty.

Breed Characteristics and Temperament Study
To assist students in accurately evaluating dogs as it pertains to obedience training. This unit provides:

• Details of the physical characteristics and purposes of American Kennel Club (A.K.C.) recognized breeds
• Review of breed aptitude and typical training problems based on National K-9’s extensive training history

Puppy Temperament Testing
This unit provides information on the value and process of puppy temperament testing as it applies to matching dogs and owners. The ability to temperament test puppies to find suitable matches is one of the most valuable skills that a professional trainer can possess. Practical applications include testing a puppy to be a family pet, police K-9, usage for disability assistance, or other specialized training.

Understanding puppy temperament testing will allow trainers and owners to recognize the signs of potential problems. These problems can then be avoided or corrected by proper handling and socialization during the formative stages of puppy development. Students receive comprehensive instruction not only through lecture, but review of National K-9’s video footage of previous temperament tests.

Puppy Preschool
Each year millions of dogs are given up by owners or euthanized due to behavior problems. The reason is usually a lack of understanding between dog and owners. Most of the dogs given up each year were dogs that as puppies were never socialized correctly or taught how to fit into our domestic world. Most puppy owners just assume that since their dog is provided plenty of love that the dog will turn out just fine. Puppies need more than registration papers, food, and love to become great pets. Puppy preschool is designed to teach the puppy owners their role in raising a well-mannered and well-behaved dog.

The main objective of this section is to teach students how dogs learn and how people can influence and shape the behavior of their growing puppy. Puppy pre-school is designed to teach owners to better understand their puppy’s needs, establish effective communication, curb behavior problems, and to show owners how to socialize puppies properly. The puppy pre-school teaches the following:

• How to develop a puppy’s learning skills and introduce them to proper animal socialization, people socialization, and object socialization skills
• How to solve and prevent future behavioral problems such as chewing, play biting, barking, house training, jumping, and more
• Informational topics such as puppy handling, introducing grooming tools, basic first aid, and the benefits of spaying and neutering
• •The importance of continuing a puppy’s education by participating in obedience training

National K-9 students will receive information on how to set-up and teach their own puppy pre-school program. Students are also given the opportunity to observe and participate in our weekly classes given to our local clientele. This allows them to receive practical experience that they will need to start their own puppy preschool.

Dog Care
This subject matter exposes students to the vital issues of maintaining a dog’s health and recognizing the early signs of health problems. This unit is taught in part by a licensed veterinarian. Students will be provided with a veterinary textbook outlining symptoms, effects, treatment and/or support, as well as prevention. Points of focus include:

• Signs, symptoms, effects, and prevention of the most common and fatal canine diseases
• Signs, symptoms, effects, and prevention of common internal and external parasites
• Kennel sanitation and health needs as they pertain to dogs’ health and prevention of infectious diseases and parasites
• Proper introduction and use of grooming tools (nail trimming, brushing, and bathing)
• Health concerns in connection with training.

Customer Relations
Students learn the important aspects of customer evaluations and relations. Students will also learn how to teach owners proper handling of their dogs as most undesirable behavior grows from a lack of communication between dog and owner.

Also covered is how to counsel clients regarding their habits and behaviors, which have a great impact on the dog’s behavior. In addition to classroom lecture and study, students are given the opportunity to observe the National K-9’s staff of certified professional trainers as they conduct evaluations, private lessons, and follow-up lessons. During observations, the students will learn problem-solving skills in dealing with various customer situations.

The Master Trainer Course includes and expands upon the material covered in the Professional/Obedience Behavior Course. This course covers a wide variety of civil-service uses for canine training including service dogs for the physically disabled, utilizing techniques for enhancing the dog’s natural instincts of protection and scent discrimination. Students learn the proper, safe and effective methods to teach dogs to control these instincts and put them to use in civil settings to assist society.

Controlled use of the protective instincts include teaching dogs to safely defend handlers, as well as Basic Police K-9 functions such as drug detection, criminal apprehension, criminal transport, building search, suspect detention, and more.

Uses of a dog’s natural scent discrimination abilities include: retrieving, steps to teaching scent detection, tracking, trailing, and search and rescue/recovery duties. Such advanced training leads into other civil service areas such as support dog work for the disabled.

While not every student may actively use these types of specialty training, the knowledge and experience has proven invaluable when the student becomes a professional trainer. These skills allow students to expand their horizons, giving them much-needed confidence and problem solving ability.

The primary objective of this course is to prepare students for a career in almost any facet of professional dog training. This instruction will qualify most graduates to begin a multi-faceted training practice or to seek employment with many different types of training centers or related occupations. The following breakdown of units represents a combination of classroom lectures on theory, practical application of instruction in supervised workshops, and independent study sessions.

Assistance Dog Training for the Disabled
Assistance Dog Training requires continual creative problem solving by trainers to match dogs to the unique abilities and needs of disabled individuals. Students are exposed to many facets of training including necessary problem-solving skills to meet the recipient’s individual needs. The classroom and workshop instruction provides a foundation for training assistance or service dogs. This unit covers:

• Evaluation of special training needs for the physically challenged
• Performing all obedience commands on the right side as well as the left side
• Basic obedience with a wheelchair-bound, walker/cane restricted handler
• Retrieval of dropped items and counter retrieval
• Pulling wheelchairs, activating switches, and other specialized training challenges
• Selection of dogs for support training and proper socialization
• Education and public relations with service dog recipients

Scent Detection and Tracking
This unit teaches students how to utilize a dog’s highly developed sense of smell. Because of their keen sense of smell, dogs are able to assist us with locating lost individuals, disaster survivors, cadaver remains, narcotics, explosives, and more. This unit will provide an overview and some hands-on experience in the basics of:

• Evaluating and selecting dogs for scent related training
• Puppy imprinting to increase the dog’s ability upon maturity
• Teaching the dog soft-mouth retrieval for greater reliability of scent detection
• Concentrated reading of canine body language
• Scent detection of narcotics, explosives, firearms, currency, and much more
• Methods of teaching the dog to communicate discoveries
• Locating a buried scent
• Tracking and trailing of lost or elusive people
• Uses and differences of air scenting versus tracking and trailing
• Search patterns and techniques
• Impact of geography and the effects of weather conditions during scent work or tracking

Search and Rescue
A dog’s acute sense of smell can be valuable in assisting search teams to find lost individuals. This unit will provide an overview and some hands-on experience on the basics of Search and Rescue or Recovery:

• Evaluating and selecting dogs for search training
• Training dogs to locate victims and lead rescuers to them
• Introduction to water and avalanche recovery of missing persons
• Cadaver detection for finding persons due to disasters or homicide searches
• Search patterns and techniques
• Impact of geography and the effects of weather conditions during search work

Personal Protection Training
The goal of Personal Protection Training is to teach qualified dogs how to recognize a threat towards their owner/handler and refine a dog’s natural protective instincts to provide owner controlled defense. Although some dogs do not readily show aggression, they do possess the ability to protect their owners. This form of training prepares the dog to defend his/her master on command by naturally enhancing the dog’s suspicion level and building their confidence.

One of the greatest benefits in learning to train dogs in protection work is that the students thoroughly learn how to recognize the difference between real aggression and “bluff” or fear-type aggression. Students who are not certain they will train dogs for protection find that this unit is extremely beneficial when dealing with aggression. This unit greatly improves a trainer’s ability to read and deal with all sorts of aggression issues during customer evaluations and obedience training, regardless of the breed or size of dog.

Students will experience:

• How to evaluate a dog to determine if she/he has the potential to become a protection dog
• How to evaluate and access an individual customer’s need for a personal protection dog
• How to enhance a dog’s natural defensive abilities and increase their confidence level
• The art of criminal agitation through naturally raising the dog’s suspicion level by participating in agitation sessions in supervised workshops
• How to read and react instantaneously to canine body language
• Techniques for teaching dog owners of a protection-trained dog to properly use and control their dog’s protective instincts
• How aggression behavior problems develop

Emphasis is placed on the safety of both the dog and owner. Students also are taught to evaluate the limitations of a protection trained dog. All forms of training to control aggression are accomplished and refined without physical abuse by utilizing the dog’s natural abilities while retaining his/her out-going and friendly personality.

Police K-9 Training
This unit teaches students the foundation of training dogs for Police K-9 or Patrol work. Emphasis is placed on obedience control and proper socialization to ensure safe and reliable Police K-9 functions. In this unit the basics of Police K-9 work theories are covered, building from the principles covered in the Personal Protection, Scent Detection, and Tracking units. This unit provides:

• Methods for evaluating potential Police K-9 candidates
• Experience as the “criminal” agitator during attack training
• Techniques for teaching dogs the “out” command, which means to cease all aggression immediately
• Techniques for developing a proper and safe bite attitude
• Exposure to training methods for suspect apprehension, search and transport function
• Exposure to training for crowd control, building search, drug and bomb detection and more

Kennel Management
Students will receive instruction in Kennel Management, including kennel design, proper ventilation, business operation, record keeping, sanitation, and more. Through lecture and a guided tour of the National K-9 kennel system, students gain the knowledge needed to design kennel facilities of any size or to purchase and renovate existing kennel set-ups in order to keep those kennels operating safely. Topics addressed include:

• Zoning regulations as it pertains to kennels and training centers
• Design and construction of new kennel buildings or renovation of existing facilities
• Kennel cleaning and sanitization procedures
• Record-keeping procedures for training and boarding dogs
• Stress-reduction and stress management in kenneled dogs
• Proper handling and care of boarding dogs

Small Business Operation
The Master Trainer Course is rounded out by instruction on how students can set-up their own dog training business. In-home training, studio training, and a complete boarding/training facility are discussed. Topics include:

• Efficient bookkeeping
• Required training equipment and supplies
• Advertising, promotion, and public relations
• Preparing for and benefiting from public appearances
• Designing advertising material
• Handling the competition
• Customer interaction
• Pricing services
• Continued observation of the National K-9 staff trainers as they conduct evaluations, private lessons, and follow-up lessons