 Look around first...
Petsmart is fine as long as you don't have a bad trainer, so it varies by location. Their program itself is all positive, which is good, but you might get an inexperienced trainer (or you might get a good one). It also takes place in the middle of the store so while that's good for working with distractions, you also might have a difficult time getting your dog to pay attention to you.
I had Loki signed up for petsmart but since it was a few weeks until the class started, I called around. I found an AMAZING trainer in the next town over. She has a masters degree and many many years of experience. We dropped the petsmart class and took her class, which was only like $10 more. She had small classes in a private facility and knew more about dogs than any person I had ever met. She directed me to some great books and encouraged us to continue. This was over a year ago and we are still taking classes for fun. I'm hoping Loki is ready to compete in a few months! |