I graduated!!!

Wow. It's over. I am now officially a graduate of the San Francisco SPCA's Academy for Dog Trainers...often called "the Harvard of dog trainer academies". It seems like only yesterday I started school and now it's all done. It was really really tough. I honestly was afraid I wasn't going to make it a couple of times...particularly on exam day.



Over that 6 weeks you learn so much: animal learning,dog behavior, behavior problems, fear and aggression, planning training sessions, freeshaping...but it's not just about the animals. You also learn about working with clients, how to conduct interviews, creating teaching plans (and teaching a couple of classroom sessions)

In addition, during the course of the program you were assigned 3 dogs. You would have 2 weeks (or slightly less) to teach them everything from the basics to more complicated tasks (for example, the last dog had to stop roaming around at the sound of a tone, come touch your hand, then the door -several feet away- then back to you with no verbal cues from you and not touching your hand or the door without the tone).

I might have said this before, but I don't regret my decision at all. I learned so much, words don't give it justice.

I had expected 6 days a week, but it actually turned out to be 7 days a week for the entire time (with the exception of the one day I stayed home the day before exams as I had managed to get sick).

I would spend on average 10-12 hours there, then often another hour or 2 more at least studying or working on reports, plans, etc that were due.

I probably should have added in a day or 2 at the end for rest before going back to work...but I go back tomorrow. :0
I'm going to miss all of my friends of both the furry-four legged variety, and the not so harry 2 legged variety (my fellow students). What a great bunch of people!!

I don't know how much people are interested in hearing, but maybe I'll write more later. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.