Dear Sirs
As an avid subscriber of your magazine I would be grateful if you would be able to advise me what are the best courses to enrol on preferably home correspondence courses, to become qualified as a behaviourist and what prior qualifications are needed to join the courses if any. I note there are many animal behaviour courses on line but am not sure which is the correct one to enrol on to gain the recognised qualification.
Many thanks
Sue Parkin
Sirs??.......Something you haven't told us Beverley?
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of courses out there - I've been going through this myself!
ReplyDeleteIn the end I decided that I was going to work towards the Kennel Club Accreditation Scheme for Instructors in Dog Training and Canine Behaviour (which is head and shoulders above so many of their other endeavours), so have chosen to study with John Rogerson as his correspondance course is designed to meet all the elements of the KCAI.
I'm hoping to start that in the New Year, but am also doing some of his other courses too.
I was asking the same question about a year ago.
ReplyDeleteI spent months researching and looking into on-line courses. I also asked many from the canine industry.
Two courses came out top. These are from
COAPE and Compass. Both are fairly respected and very current regarding latest research and training methods.
I chose COAPE after reading emails from both.
However, to become a behaviourist is not something you can do in a year.
I feel to become a proper Canine Behaviourist you need the proper qualifications.
hopefully next year I will embark on a Canine Behaviour and Training Foundation Degree which is a three year distance learning course which includes several residential stays at the campus. There appears to be only two colleges that run this course. I have chosen Bishop Burton.
There are many courses that claim to make you a behaviourist in a month, year etc i would avoid those.
Hope that helps and good luck in your search
Compass education are very good, plus the Cambridge Institute of Dog Training and Behaviour, although they still haven't put up prices for their masters course which I want to do.
ReplyDeleteThe most important thing I feel though is to spend hours and hours shadowing different trainers and watching the use of different techniques so that you can build up your own style and methods, using the best bits you have seen others use.
I have done a huge list of courses in the past 18 months in order to set up my own dog training business, but I have also been shadowing for all of this time, and feel that watching and teaching in an assistant capacity have been the best ways of learning for me.
Good luck!