In Regards To Destraint Therapy Topic

[Staff'n'Toller]

Great question myzka. Here's what i think

- Any person who advertises private training of any kind is required to be an accredited trainer, to have completed a nationally recognised Australian course.

- Any group or club training must be registered with the VCA OR be under the direct supervision of an accredited trainer. For those clubs who are VCA registered but do not have accredited trainers, they must not attempt to deal with problems outside the scope of general obedience. Behaviour problems including but not limited to aggression, anxiety and excessive barking must be referred either to an accredited trainer at the club OR to an accredited trainer outside the club

I don't think the regulatory body would have to get involved in methods and tools except to say that cruelty is not permitted which is the case under the animal welfare act anyway. Anybody who is accredited would have knowledge and experience regarding tools and their use, even if they then choose not to use them.

If you want to be affiliated with the VCA as an Obedience Club, you must run 2 trials a year, and run a committee that is acceptable under the code of ethics set down by them.

Mel.

[Rom]

I don't believe affiliation with a governing body guarantees that there will be an accredited trainer/behaviourist on hand or supervising anyone as things stand at the moment. I'm speaking from my perspective of what I know of CCCQ and their affiliated clubs.

If it were otherwise, you'd expect to see such governing bodies providing seminars, workshops and testing for candidates for said accreditation in the same way that they do for judges, and to my knowledge that doesn't happen. (May be different with the VCA)

At obedience clubs, what you're more likely to see is people who have been involved in competition obedience for a long time who are the stalwarts of the club and whilst I don't mean to denigrate the hundreds of volunteer hours that they have put in, my experience is that they are inflexible and non progressive in their training approaches. They pay more attention to those dogs and handlers who have competition obedience potential than they do to those dogs and handlers who are having behavioural issues.

There is just as much damage done to some dogs and handlers by those obedience clubs that fall into the above categories (hoping that I've worded this to not offend instructors at those clubs that are progressive, flexible in their approaches, and keep their education up dated :D ) as there is by some trainers in the private field. However, these clubs can still hold up their affiliation to the governing body as an indication that they can solve a dogs problems when this more often than not is not the case.

I've heard far too often for my liking, titled obedience competitors who also instruct, say to pet owners who have absolutely no intention of trialling things to the effect of "You might as well get rid of that dog, he's never going to be any good" which just indicates to me that they either don't have the answers for the problem, don't believe there is an answer, or they don't care. They don't even refer to a qualified behaviourist when they can't deal with an issue.

If it were otherwise, you'd see these dogs and handlers getting the help they need.

I feel that the existing governing bodies have a lot to answer for in this problem and that they need to make changes. I think that they also need to realise that by not having training and accreditation for instructors at affiliated clubs that in an indirect way, they contibute pet dumpage rates.