Addie and I went through Petsmart training (puppy). As others have said, it depends on the trainer. Addie learned the commands quickly (clicker training was the best thing I learned about in the class). However, our trainer pretty much just told us the basics (sit, down, leave it). She wasn't really good with questions about other things (e.g., feeding times, potty training, what to do to socialize the extremely shy dog in our class); if it wasn't in the manual we received, she wasn't going to go over it. Also, she called Addie a monster at one point. Addie gets excited when she sees people she knows, and when Addie was trying to get the trainer to pay attention to her, she bent down, picked Addie up and called her a monster. Now I know through research that the trainer should never have even approached Addie until she was calm. I wasn't the only one in that particular class that was unhappy with the trainer either.
See if they'll let you in on a class so you can get a feel for the trainer, or stop in and talk to the trainer beforehand. I spoke with a trainer at another Petsmart just before I signed up for the class and now wish I had signed up with her instead even though she was farther away. |