Has anyone ever taken the puppy training classes at petsmart?
I am scheduled to begin a Class and I was wondering if anyone has taken that class and what they thought about it? Did it help in learning to train your pup?
Yes. For a puppy class, and very basic things, it’s fine. I wouldn’t and haven’t taken any other classes there. Anything more advanced than basic puppy class, the instructors at my Petsmart are just not experienced enough. Fortunately, the class I did take, the trainer was an experienced one, who had done training at another private facility prior to Petsmart She left Petsmart after teaching for a few months.
She said that Petsmart adheres to a certain set of guidelines for their classes, and doesn’t really step outside the box. There were many options and training she knew of to provide, but was bound to only follow the Petsmart guideline. (In speaking with her privately, all of her suggestions were positive-training in nature, nothing controversial, but she just could not provide them in class For example, she recommended a prong collar- NOT for a puppy, but for a grown dog that was a strong puller. While I know many people disagree with that, a prong used correctly is not a torture device and actually less damaging than a choke collar. She was not allowed to recommend that in class, even though they sell them at Petsmart.)
In picking up supplies a few weeks after she left, I saw that one of the girls (probably early 20′s) who had previously been a cashier, was now the puppy class instructor. Petsmart does send trainers to be trained, and she may have been ok, but it didn’t instill much confidence in me to sign up for more classes.
Edit: I guess I should add a disclaimer-don’t want to offend any Petsmart trainers. This was just my experience at my Petsmart.