What Does “Accredited” Actually Mean in Dog Training?

Accreditation is one of the most effective words in education marketing because it does a lot of work before anyone asks what it actually means.

Pop “accredited” next to a course and most dog trainers immediately assume that someone independent has checked the teaching, the qualification carries professional weight, the certificate will help their career and the course is safer than an alternative without the badge. I thought it was the course providers version of a peer review in science. I know this because I made exactly the same assumption.

When we first started building courses for dog professionals, about Ten years ago, it became obvious very quickly that dog trainers wanted accreditation or some form of external verification. I used to lecture for the IMDT and we even wore hoodies that said “accredited dog trainer”

From a business point of view, it looked like an obvious way to make more sales, so we started looking into it almost immediately.

At the time, I assumed accreditation meant that some respected dog training expert would go through the course, check the science, challenge anything weak and confirm that the teaching genuinely stood up. That assumption was, at best, way off the mark.

Depending on the type of accreditation, a lot of attention can be placed on things such as policies, assessment procedures, complaints systems, record keeping and quality assurance. Those things can improve education but they can also hinder progress. What they do not provide is an independent subject expert going through every piece of content and deciding whether the science is current, the practical advice is good or the person teaching it actually knows their arse from their elbow.

That is what this article is about.

Full disclosure before I go any further: I own an education company. The School of Canine Science sells courses to dog trainers and behaviourists, and the Behaviour Bible is not accredited (by choice). I therefore have just as much reason to want you to scrutinise my argument as I think you should scrutinise the claims of somebody selling an accredited course.

Accredited by who, and for what?

This should be the first question anyone asks when they see the word.

Accreditation is not one universal standard. A course might lead to a regulated qualification, be recognised by a professional body for entry onto a register, or carry accreditation from a private company that has created its own standards and review process.

Those things can all have value but they are not the same thing. The problem is that the buyer normally just sees a logo.

“Accredited” sounds as though the whole course has been independently examined by people at the top of the profession. Depending on the scheme, what has actually been reviewed may be is likely very different. That does not make accreditation worthless. It means you need to know what the badge actually represents.

Before buying a course because it is accredited, I would ask three questions: who awarded it, what exactly did they assess, and what practical benefit does it give me afterwards?

If nobody can answer those clearly, the badge is doing the selling instead of the course.

Who are you actually trying to impress?

There is another question worth asking before spending money and time chasing qualifications and memberships. Who are you actually doing it for?

Sometimes the honest answer is other dog trainers.

There is status attached to qualifications, memberships and letters after your name in this industry. They can make someone feel more established or legitimate in the eyes of their peers, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Sometimes it helps with our own confidence issues.

The problem comes when we confuse looking more qualified with becoming better at helping dogs and their owners. If you’ve built your name around a badge but struggle to get the results you know the dogs deserve, imposter syndrome will eventually start tapping on your shoulder.

I have been doing this for more than twenty years, and I can remember perhaps three clients asking me what qualifications I had. That is hardly a controlled scientific study, but it tells you something about what the average dog owner tends to care about.

Most clients do not know the difference between the professional bodies whose logos trainers put on their websites. They find trainers through recommendations, Google, social media, reviews and word of mouth. They want to know whether you understand their problem, whether you can help them and whether other people like them have had good experiences with you.

Your ability to train dogs matters. Your ability to work with people matters. Your results and reputation matter. Your ability to communicate what you do matters.

For most independent dog trainers, those things will probably bring in considerably more clients than membership of an organisation their customers have never heard of. I was having this chat with a trainer I’ve know for years, she’s fed up with feeling the need to be tied to an organisation but when we dug into it, they weren’t where her clients were coming from.

There are obvious exceptions. Some jobs, referral relationships or professional registers require specific qualifications or memberships. If a qualification opens a door you actually want to walk through, brilliant. That is a sensible reason to get it.

Collecting badges because they make you look more professional is a different thing. I’m not knocking you. I’m knocking the younger trainer in me who spent years looking for acceptance in what can be an incredibly toxic industry.

Accreditation also tells you surprisingly little about the training philosophy or ethical position behind a course unless those things form part of what has actually been assessed.

The International Association of Canine Professionals, for example, offer a dedicated prong-collar education module. At the other end of the industry, you will find organisations accrediting courses that would describe themselves as entirely force-free. The badge alone does not tell you which education you would want.

I learnt that lesson long before the School of Canine Science became what it is now. I bought an accredited dog training course which recommended dealing with a dog chasing cars by arranging for a car to drive past while someone leaned out of the back window and threw a bucket of water over the dog.

It had the badge. It also contained advice I would not allow anywhere near one of our courses.

That is the point. Accreditation can tell you that somebody met the accreditor’s criteria. It cannot automatically tell you that you share their ethics, that the science is current or that you would ever be prepared to use the practical advice they are teaching.

Where we chose to spend the money

When we first looked into accreditation, the attraction was obvious. It would have made the sales conversation easier. Instead of explaining why the course was good, we could point at a logo and let the logo do some of the work.

But accreditation costs money, administration and time. Every pound and every hour spent there is money and attention that cannot be spent somewhere else.

We had to decide what we wanted the course budget to buy. We chose the education.

That meant bringing in people who knew far more than Dean and I did about specific subjects rather than pretending we were experts in everything.

Fair Vassoler brought the neuroscience. Kathleen Morrill contributed to the genetics material after leading one of the largest studies conducted into canine genetics and behaviour. Clive Wynne covered cognition and emotion, Simón Gadbois helped with endocrinology, and Daniel Weigend brought decades of experience studying the social behaviour of wolves and dogs.

Then there are people including Sarah Fisher, Kim Brophey, Ian Dunbar, Michael Shikashio, Kamal Fernandez and Tom Candy bringing their own areas of experience. Malena DeMartini contributed to separation anxiety, Nij Vyas helped us look at predation and working sheepdogs, Simone Mueller covered predation substitute training, and Stefania Uccheddu contributed to canine compulsive disorder, an area she has researched professionally.

They were not photographs stuck on a sales page so we could borrow their credibility. It took thousands of miles and hours to put together. Their involvement changed the course.

We also chose to spend money and time on real-life case studies, detailed assessments and individual feedback. I wanted students to see what decision-making looks like when a dog and owner do not fit neatly into a textbook example, and I wanted the certificate to require something more than watching videos and downloading a PDF at the end.

That decision has probably cost us sales.

An accreditation badge would have been much easier to explain than all of that.

I am still happy we made it.

The Behaviour Bible was designed more like a professional reference library than something you watch once, pass and forget about. There is too much material for anyone to absorb perfectly on the first run, and that is deliberate. Students should be able to go back when they meet a difficult case, need to revisit the science or want to check their thinking.

It’s not just the behaviour bible, we created a whole series of Fusion courses with people who far outweighed our own knowledge and experience in different subject. You’ll hear from one of the tutors in a bit.

For me, the choice comes down to this: I would rather pay the person who genuinely understands genetics to contribute to the genetics curriculum than pay another organisation because we want its logo on the certificate.

That might be worse marketing.

I think it makes for better education.

Jane Ardern: Understanding Accreditation

I wanted another perspective on this from somebody who has actually worked inside regulated canine education rather than simply agreeing with myself.

Jane Ardern has been involved in writing and delivering OFQUAL courses and has worked as a subject expert developing assessment criteria and learning outcomes for OFQUAL Regulated Courses. She also holds a BSc with Honors in Canine Behaviour and Training and has studied the Behaviour Bible herself.

I asked Jane for her view. I have not edited what follows.

Understanding Accreditation

As the dog training and behaviour industry grows we are seeing more and more companies set up offering courses to be dog trainers.

As the industry is not regulated, neither are the course providers so it is very much a buyer beware market.

If you are looking for a course that is offered by a private company as opposed to the education system it is important to understand how it all works so you don’t waste hundred or thousands of pounds.

We have also had a couple of education providers have some drama and controversy attached to them, from puppy farming to criminal records so I would firstly recommend anyone looking a course from a business to do you research on the company owners.

Lots of companies offer courses that are ‘accredited’ This means that another company, also a business has externally verified the courses.

OFQUAL regulated courses have been through the same criteria a college or university course would have. However I have been involved in writing and delivering OFQUAL courses. I have also been involved as a subject expert developing the assessment criteria and learning outcomes of OFQUAL Regulated Courses.

What is really important to understand is that these businesses are selling a product and marketing and sales are important. Sometime the information you see can be misleading.

When a course is accredited or ofqual regulated the bones and structure of the how the course is delivered is what is assessed. Not the actual content, however for OFQUAL the person delivering the course has to be qualified in the subject above the level that is being delivered I’m not sure if this is still the case, but it was at one time.

Also courses will be advertised as level this and level that and that the level is the equivalent to a degree. Its really important to understand many of these courses may provide you with some credits at degree level, but most of the credits do not equate to the amount you would get doing a degree at a University. I have met many people who have chosen a course paid a small fortune and thought that they were doing the equivalent to a degree but when they have gone on to say apply for a Masters at a University, thinking they had the same as a BSc they haven’t had enough credits.

The content of the course, which is what you actually learn, not how its delivered will be represented by the person/s delivering it. Their knowledge and experience will be relevant and important, only the structure is what is accredited.

I do believe any course is only as good as the person delivering it. I also believe that you get out what you put in. I will always stretch myself and aim to grow as opposed to do the minimal required to get the certificate. One of the reasons I stopped teaching was because I have little tolerance for people who want to pay a fee, put in the minimum effort and get their certificate. I’m always happy to mentor people in the industry but I don’t have certificates or badges to give out, just my knowledge and experience.

The one thing I loved about the behaviour bible is that the modules were created by people who are immensely passionate about dogs and dog training and they had all demonstrated good practical ability and a deep underpinning knowledge and they also had the content signed off by industry experts. This is the part, that many other courses don’t provide.

I also liked that the information was firstly presented in a really digestible way, especially for anyone that is neurodivergent and might struggle with formal education and secondly there was no bias, just information, data and facts for you to come to your own conclusions.

You can also choose to just digest the content or do the assessments. I’ve got qualifications coming out of my ears and just wanted a course that would enable me to keep up to date with information and the Behaviour Bible provided that for me.

There is trend to chase certificates, badges and memberships. These will possibly give you confidence and marketing content, but will they make you a good dogs trainer or behaviourist? that will depend on the content.

The industry is unregulated and there are organisations who will lead you to believe that joining them is the way forward. I honestly don’t think there will be regulation, certainly not in my lifetime as people tend to have very fixed viewpoints and they can never come to any agreement or compromise. Ive seen many fallouts and many organisations appear over the years.

Some organisations will only recognise you if you have completed their courses or from businesses they are associated with, I have a degree, a BSc with Honors in Canine Behaviour and Training from a UK University and it is not recognised by some of these organisations.

To someone coming into the industry I would recommend you do lots of research on courses and the people who are delivering them. I would also look into sports and working dogs, see how dogs are trained at a high level. See for yourself the standards of dog training.

If you have no experience and go on one course, how do you really know what you are being taught is actually beginner, novice and advanced levels? It may just be their criteria and not general industry standards.

The best dog trainers I have learned from have had no formal qualifications, but they have achieved great things with their own dogs. Most importantly dogs are their life, their whole life. They have a deep passion for understanding and knowledge and constantly strive to better themselves. If they were not working as professionals, they would still be training dogs, going on seminars and workshops, buying books and spending all their money on dog stuff.

The general public want good dog trainers, ones that can fix their problems. Strive to be a great practical dog trainer with a thorough underpinning knowledge, excellent practical skills What’s really important is to be able to think outside of the box and the textbook, problem solving skills are a must because that’s what you do, you solve people’s problems.

When accreditation becomes part of the sales pitch

Nando, again.

This gets particularly interesting when accreditation or course recognition is linked to a professional register.

At that point the badge is no longer being sold simply as reassurance about education. It can start being sold as the route into the profession, or even the route you will supposedly need if regulation arrives.

I have already covered one example of this in detail in a separate article about the ABTC and proposed regulatory changes. Rather than repeat the whole investigation here, we followed the public records, Companies House information and Defra documents and looked at the commercial relationships sitting alongside some of the claims being made about the future of the profession.

You can read Following the Paperwork: David Montgomery’s Regulation Blog Doesn’t Add Up if you want the full argument.

The important principle here is much simpler.

If somebody tells you that a particular qualification, accreditation or professional register is going to be essential to your future career, ask whether they have a financial or organisational interest in the route they are recommending.

A commercial interest does not automatically make their recommendation wrong.

It does mean you deserve to know about it.

Before you spend the money

I do not think the answer is to avoid every accredited course. I think the answer is to stop treating “accredited” as the end of the investigation.

Before spending thousands of pounds or years of your life on professional education, I would want answers to five things.

Who awarded it? Is this a regulated qualification, recognition from a professional body, or accreditation from a private business? What authority does that organisation actually have?

What did they assess? Did somebody with relevant subject expertise examine the educational content, or was the emphasis mainly on the provider’s systems and assessment processes?

What does it give me afterwards? Does it open a specific job, register, referral relationship or insurance requirement? If the answer is simply “credibility”, credibility with whom?

Who actually teaches the course? What have they done, what do they know, and did specialists contribute when the subject moved outside their own expertise?

What do I have to demonstrate? Can students genuinely fail? Is practical work assessed? Is there individual feedback? What happens when the science changes after the course has been approved?

Those questions require more effort than looking at a logo.

If you are making a serious investment in your career, I think you can probably spare the extra ten minutes.

The badge is not the education

I am not against accreditation, but I cannot say I am for it either. Having done a fair amount of digging for this article, I am not sure it serves any actual purpose that benefits the end user unless that benefit can be clearly explained.

Maybe the qualification gets you onto a register you need.

Maybe an employer specifically requires it.

Maybe the external review genuinely improves the education.

Great. Now we have a reason.

What I do not accept is the assumption that accreditation automatically means the course is current, ethical, scientifically sound, professionally valuable and capable of making you better at the job.

Those are separate things.

That applies to the Behaviour Bible too. Do not buy it because I tell you it is good, because Jane likes it, because there are impressive names attached to it or because thousands of other people have enrolled.

Look at the curriculum. Look at the contributors. Look at the assessments, case studies and feedback. Look at what students are expected to demonstrate before they receive the certificate.

The people who complete it properly work through the science, apply it to real cases and have their thinking assessed. They also keep the course as a reference resource and have practical systems, forms, email templates and client videos they can use in their businesses.

That is what I want our certificate to represent.

Not that somebody paid us and reached the last video.

That they did the work.

In my own journey, some of the best education I have received was not accredited. I am lucky enough now to have the confidence not to care very much about the letters after somebody’s name and to understand that there will always be several routes into the career you want.

I have trained with some of the world’s most respected trainers and behaviourists. Some talk a good game but their handling cannot keep up. Others can train the arse off any dog but cannot wrap their head around the difference between positive punishment and negative reinforcement.

My goal is to help trainers and behaviourists reach a standard where they can excel at both.

A logo cannot do that for you.

The education might.

If you have questions about the course, the assessments or whether it is the right route for you, you can also book a call with Dean and ask him directly.

If you want to look at what Jane has done for us, which I would recommend check it out here.