How Much Should I Charge For Dog Training?
A Reader Asks…
I will be training a 5 month old lab how to sit, walk on a leash without tugging, drop it, down, and house breaking her. I will be doing this for about 8 hours a day for 5 days. This is my first time doing anything like this, but i have worked with dogs for 7 years now.
Any ideas on how much I should charge for the week or per hour?
(Scroll down to see responses)
I am a Certified Dog Trainer.
Remember dogs only have about a 15-20 min attention span, (less if they are young) and any more than two or maybe three sessions per day would be counter productive. So you are only actually training the dog for maybe one hour per day for five days equaling five hours. The average price for professional dog training per hour is $150-$250 per session or per hour.
If you are required to stay with the dog for the entire 8 hours you need to charge by the day, if you can leave and come back you can charge by the hour. Depending on the part of the country you live in the price for the day should be $150 to $250, this is taking into account that you are probably not a certified dog trainer. You are performing three distinct services; dog sitting, house sitting, and dog training, granted you are new to dog training you are still no doubt very knowledgeable. They could never find anyone reliable to do all these services for less then $150 per day. If you end up charging by the hour charge them $20 to $30 per hour for each hour where you are at their house either house sitting or dog training.
I hope this helps you, you can learn much more at my website: http://www.blueribbon-k9.com , and if your interested I can recommend some really great dog training certifications that you can look into.
Since it is obvious that you do not have a clue about obedience training, your services should be for free. You cannot train even an adult dog for 8 hours a day. About the most that can be done at any one time is 10 – 20 minutes and that is with an adult dog and not a puppy. The attention span on this baby is extremely short and training session should be no more than 10 minutes and twice a day. Additionally, there isn’t going to be much learned if you will only be training for 5 days. Obedience training is cumulative and is done over a much longer period of at least several weeks to several months.
What you can charge is determined by your experience, reputation, and accomplishments and in a case like this, should also include guaranteed expectations. Just working with dogs over several years, is not the experience that is necessary to be a dog trainer. There are too many people who are putting that title to their name and fleecing the public. Don’t be one of them.
I would say 20-40 dollars an hour, depending on how you feel about your own ability to train dogs. People don’t trust trainers/nannies/baby sitters/landscapers/etc. who don’t have references nearly as much as those who are established, so having a comparatively low rate would give a family incentive to hire you. If you are hired to train two other dogs and feel like you had a good professional experience with the families, it would be time to hiking up your prices.
200 bucks an hour.
Lie to them and tell them you are one of the best in the country, (It can’t be a lie anyway, it’s all based on opinion) and that is why yours is a little higher.
Surely 8hours a day is way to much training for a dog? In one day?
I would say, $10-$20 an hour. That way, it will be worth your time. If the owners of the dog don’t agree with this price, then $5-$10 an hour. I know its cheap, but if u wanna get the owners to agree to a lower price, then that the way to go. Or, just $240 for the whole week, since the dog is learning a lot, and its for 8 hours every day for five days. Think about these suggestions. good luck! =)
XD