The Benefits of Sending Your Dog for Residential Training
18th October 2022
Categories: Behaviour
If you’re at your wit’s end with your dog, it might be time to send him or her off for residential training. This is where dog trainers take your pet and work intensively with them for three weeks, although sometimes a longer duration may be recommended in extreme cases. During this time, they will address any issues that you are seeing with your dog and try to fix them. It can be an ideal solution for those who have tried other methods of training but haven’t seen any results. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the process of sending your dog for residential training and what you can expect from it.
When you first contact Vislor about Residential Training, they will book in an initial consultation with you. This is where your trainer will assess your dog’s needs, as well as your own, and figure out what the best course of action is. They will also answer any questions that you have about the process. Once you’ve decided to go ahead with residential training, the trainer will work up with a plan, and explain the process behind residential training. This plan will outline the goals that you want to achieve and what the trainer will do to help you reach them.
During the three weeks that your dog is in training, the trainer will work on obedience commands, socialisation skills, and behaviour modification. They will also teach you how to continue the training once your dog comes home. At the end of the three weeks, you will have a dog that is better behaved and more obedient. You’ll also have the skills and knowledge to continue this training on your own.
Why is a minimum of three weeks recommended?
Three weeks is our minimum requirement, for all cases we would like longer as it takes a few days for the dog to settle and get used to the new environment and bond with the trainer.
Three weeks can seem like a long time for you to be away from your dog, but a shorter time would not give the trainers sufficient time to deliver the best results. This is especially the case with more reactive dogs, and not having enough time with your dog would be wasting your money.
On occasion, we will insist on a longer period, perhaps four to five weeks. This will be discussed at your first consultation meeting with you, with the reasons why this recommendation is being made.
Examples of when this may occur include your trainer’s assessment of the problem that you want to rectify is perhaps more of an issue that you realise, or if the dog is extremely reactive in certain situations.
It may be that your dog is several years old and has been ‘allowed’ to behave in a certain manner for several years, but due to a change in circumstance, the problem needs rectifying.
It can even come down to the breed – as an example, the bull-type breeds take much longer to develop a bond with trainers and need extra time to settle and be in a good state to start the training.
When is residential training better than one-to-one training?
Vislor recognise that one-to-one training may be your preferred option, but sometimes residential brings about better results in a shorter timeframe. This comes down to limitations that you may have, for example your ability, time restraints, and any health conditions that you may have that means one-to-one training will not work for you, but residential boot camp training will have your dog up to scratch in no time.
A lot of the dogs that we take for residential training are beyond the skills of a nonprofessional dog trainer and are unable to be trained alongside other dogs in the early stages. Vislor provide secure locations across the UK for training to allow the trainers to work with your dog until they have more control.
Residential training also gives the trainer time to assess, understand and deal with how deep the problem is in a more focused way, as opposed to making assessments for an hour at a time.
If you still feel that one-to-one training is best for you, you can find out more information on our One-to-One Dog Training page.
What is the difference between Residential Bootcamp Training and Boarding Kennels?
Boarding is generally where your dog just stays in a kennel while the owner is away. Some kennels will take the dogs for daily walks and ensure that your dog will get time to play with other residents, but unfortunately, others don’t.
When on residential training, your dog will be constantly engaging in new experiences that will help you, and your dog, in the long run. Generally, the process is like the outline below, but this depends on your individual circumstances which we will discuss with you at your consultation.
The first few days will be spent bonding with your dog, to ensure that your Vislor trainer can get the best out of their time together.
The first week is usually spent at the trainer’s own location, so that they can ensure they have control and leadership and assess if there are any other training needs that need addressing in addition to what they have been informed by the owner.
In the second week, if the trainer is confident, they will go on country park walks where there may be other people and dogs as well as training at the training field.
All walks and all aspects of the day will be part of the training exercises, even going through doors and gates, getting in and out of the car, will be controlled and the dog will be taught the correct way to behave.
In the third week they will do walks into town, sit in cafés, pubs and other busy settings exposing the dog to as much as possible, especially whatever it is that is causing the reactivity problem. This will ensure that your dog has become aware of its surroundings but reacts in the correct way.
Your dog will spend time around the trainer’s family and other animals. Our aim is to make a huge difference for you during Residential Bootcamp Training.
Exposure to different environments
Exposure to different environments is one of the key benefits of sending your dog for residential training. This is because it allows them to learn the correct behaviour for each environment. For example, if you send your dog to a residential training school that specializes in obedience training, they will be able to learn the correct behaviours for different environments such as the home, the park, the café and sometimes even the beach.
This is important because it means that you can take your dog anywhere with you without having to worry about them getting too excited or behaving badly. It also means that you can be confident that your dog will behave appropriately in any situation, whether you are at a friend’s house or out in public.
Another benefit of exposure to different environments is that it can help to socialize your dog. This is because they will be exposed to other dogs and people in a variety of settings. This can help to prevent problems such as dog aggression or fear of strangers.
You might find that your dog has certain triggers – it might be squirrels, cars, or even leaves in the wind. Make sure that mention these triggers or issues in as much detail as you can to your Vislor Trainer in your consultation meeting, so that they are equipped with as much knowledge as possible when taking your dog into Residential Training. The more they know, the further they can go towards correcting these issues and make your walk in the park, well, a walk in the park!
What should I expect from Vislor?
At Vislor, we pride ourselves on providing an honest, professional and open dog training service. If we don’t think that we can help you, then we will tell you – we won’t just take your money without being able to show results.
When it comes to dog training, our expertise is second-to-none. Our residential training programme is the perfect solution for dog owners who want to see real results.
During your dog’s stay with us, they will receive one-to-one training from one of our experienced team of dog trainers, based in various locations across the country. We will work with you to address any specific issues that you are having and help you to achieve your goals.
We will provide you with weekly updates on your dog’s progress, so that you can see the progress being made during the residential stay.
Upon completion of the residential stay, we will carry out a handover session with you, going through all the actions that we have taken, and ensure that you are confident in handling your dog once it comes back into your home.
After the handover session, Vislor keeps the line of communication open for you to ask any further questions or check if you forget something that has been explained to you.
If, later down the line, you decide that you want to top up on what you have learned, you can book in for one-to-one sessions or group lessons with other Vislor clients to be able to test your new skills.
You can also book in for further residential training as holiday cover to maintain your dog’s level of training, rather than leave your dog in boarding kennels or with someone that doesn’t know how to continue with the training the dog has had.
We will do all we can to help you, the training is a team effort between the dog, you and your trainer.
To book your dog in for Residential Bootcamp Training, please drop us a message on our contact page or contact Lorraine Foster on +44 7973 320413 with any questions that you may have.