# PetSmart dog trainer interview



## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Hello,
I know some of you out there are PetSmart dog trainers. I have just been asked to interview for a position. What could I expect from the job? What have your experiences been.


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## Mikelia (Aug 29, 2012)

The main thing you should expect is adhering to a very strict training protocol. I was the head trainer at a petsmart for years and that was my biggest frustration. It is completely corporate, and you must do things their way. As lead trainer I tweaked things as much as I could but it is very frustrating to be forced to deal with a behaviour that will takes weeks to fix, when you know you could fix it immediately if you used another method. But you can't. It was a fun job though, and I learned a lot about patience


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## Steve Strom (Oct 26, 2013)

Hey Emily, do you feel comfortable with trying to teach other people how to train their dog?


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

I'm a bit nervous about that aspect, yes. It is a dream of mine to become a dog trainer. I just completed a clicker training course online through the Karen Pryor Academy, and Grim and Skadi are very happy with it.


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Nervous and excited.


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## ZoeD1217 (Feb 7, 2014)

Good luck!


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Thanks, Zoe and Mikelia.


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## Steve Strom (Oct 26, 2013)

Thats the part I always wonder about. The teaching. I don't doubt you can train a dog to sit, but teaching someone else to do it is a different kind of skill. Good luck . Hope it works out for you.


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Thanks


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## Pax8 (Apr 8, 2014)

I don't want to say too much because I started out at a really horrible store, so I know it's not the typical experience. It's been much better since I got to the new store. But like others said, the big things to remember is that there will be a lot of politics, you will have a rather strict curriculum and rules about what you can teach and how you can teach it, and there will likely be a focus on sales that can be annoying at best and absolutely rage-inducing at worst. Just so you know.  

I'm not actually sure if I would mention that you attended KP's academy....I've known people with previous training experience to get turned down from the program because the company more or less seems to want blank slates to put through their company program. If I had applied as a trainer instead of a cashier my manager told me point blank I would have been rejected. Even though I knew positive reinforcement, it was a "conflict of previous bias" and they basically didn't want me picking and choosing what I wanted to learn out of their training based on what I thought was a good method or not. If you really want, you could mention it, but I would look closely for their reaction to get an idea of whether you should down play or up play it.

I only ended up with a trainer job because every store needs two trainers and one of ours got pregnant and didn't tell anyone until the last minute. So my manager was scrambling to fill the gap and I was the only one who wanted to fill it. Otherwise, I would not have gotten it.


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Thanks, Pax. The guy actually seemed impressed by my work at the shelter and said he was impressed by my experience and resume.


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

I will do my best blank slate impression.


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## Pax8 (Apr 8, 2014)

Haha, maybe it changes by area. I just know that's what they're like in my area and a couple other places in the country. Though I don't know about yours. Just thought I'd mention it so you can adjust as needed if they get squirrely about you knowing what you're doing.


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

I already mentioned the KPA class.. Eee.


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## Pax8 (Apr 8, 2014)

glowingtoadfly said:


> I already mentioned the KPA class.. Eee.


Well, like I said it could be something that changes with the area. It sounds like they already told you it was impressive. If they're responding positively to it, then it may be good to play it up!  And Karen Pryor does positive reinforcement, so there's not anything I can think of that's out of line with company policy. I would just make sure that you talk about it as an understanding of what the company philosophy is and how you're going to use your experience within THEIR training program. That'll be the big thing to them is whether or not they feel you're going to work within their program or if you're going to be constantly fighting it and trying to make it something that's not in line with the company curriculum.

That was the general feeling in my area, was that if you had prior experience, you would be more likely to ignore their curriculum and try to create your own. So that would be the thing I would focus on with them is the fact that you have great experience, but you respect that the company has its own curriculum and way of doing things that you'll learn and work within the rules of.


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## lalachka (Aug 13, 2013)

Steve Strom said:


> Thats the part I always wonder about. The teaching. I don't doubt you can train a dog to sit, but teaching someone else to do it is a different kind of skill. Good luck . Hope it works out for you.


For sure. It's a skill and also takes a patient person. 

But it seems like petsmart just needs robots to voice their training curriculum. I didn't realize that their trainers are trained before the job as opposed to hired for the skill set


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## Pax8 (Apr 8, 2014)

lalachka said:


> For sure. It's a skill and also takes a patient person.
> 
> But it seems like petsmart just needs robots to voice their training curriculum. I didn't realize that their trainers are trained before the job as opposed to hired for the skill set


There are all skill levels of people hired for the position. As I said in another thread, I've worked alongside a woman who trained police and military K9 prior to getting the job and a man who barely knew how to put on a dog's harness. But everyone goes through a two week training period with an area level trainer and they are passed or failed. The quality of the trainers in a store area depends largely on the quality of the area trainer as they are the ones that pass or fail prospective trainers. Hence the reason why some areas of stores can have great trainers and some have horrible trainers. Also the reason why I've been to a store where the trainers correct with Gentle Leaders. It was because they had a terrible area trainer that didn't know what they were teaching. So it can be a crapshoot. There's no quality control beyond the area trainer unless someone pushes hard enough to get high level corporate involved. And high level corporate rarely gets involved in training issues.

There are definitely issues with the company, but there are bright spots. I've met some excellent trainers in the stores (my previously mentioned ex-K9 coworker) but that's why I tell anyone who wants to train at a retail store to research the trainer. If a local trainer isn't great, you can find a vastly different quality of trainer by just going a store or two farther away.

I CAN say that for anyone looking for class teaching experience, it's pretty invaluable. You learn pretty quickly if you have the patience to teach a public class both due to the type of people that typically take retail classes and the fact that the company has a general policy of "you sink or you swim". So if you can swim and you can deal with people like my regulars who want to drop the puppy off at the shelter because it barks too much or they're going to a shock collar because the gentle leader, easy walk, choke, and prong aren't working anymore.... Then you can survive just about anywhere.


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## lalachka (Aug 13, 2013)

I guess I don't believe you can learn to train in 2 weeks. I've been at it for over a year and I'm not even close and I'm not the dumbest 
Then again, I think in 10 years I will say the same, that I don't know how to train


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## Pax8 (Apr 8, 2014)

lalachka said:


> I guess I don't believe you can learn to train in 2 weeks. I've been at it for over a year and I'm not even close and I'm not the dumbest
> Then again, I think in 10 years I will say the same, that I don't know how to train


Most people can't. Which is why we end up with some terrible trainers. Most of the really good trainers that I know came in with previous experience, so the two weeks wasn't spent learning how to train, but more what the rules and restrictions were and how the company wants the classes to run. Although, you are right in that none of the good trainers I know say that they are "masters" or anything of the like. They may have a good idea of what they're doing, but they are always open to new information and techniques.


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## lalachka (Aug 13, 2013)

I don't think I believe that anyone can learn to train in 2 weeks. 
I had an idea that big stores had bad trainers (with some exceptions) but i thought they all had training experience and just went there because they couldn't go anywhere else. 

Now that I know that anyone can come in, go through a 2 weeks class and work as a trainer - i don't know what anyone can get from those classes. To each his own I guess. Russian roulette of dog training lol. Which trainer will you get? Except the bullet is a good trainer.


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## Pax8 (Apr 8, 2014)

lalachka said:


> I don't think I believe that anyone can learn to train in 2 weeks.
> I had an idea that big stores had bad trainers (with some exceptions) but i thought they all had training experience and just went there because they couldn't go anywhere else.
> 
> Now that I know that anyone can come in, go through a 2 weeks class and work as a trainer - i don't know what anyone can get from those classes. To each his own I guess. Russian roulette of dog training lol. Which trainer will you get? Except the bullet is a good trainer.


The point I was trying to make was that even though a person with pretty much any skill level can get the job, there ARE good trainers in retail who have previous experience. I never said anyone can learn to train in two weeks. :\ I only said that good trainers typically have previous experience, and that you usually need to research to find them. So even though admittedly, there are bad trainers that work for the company, there are also a lot of great trainers who have good experience (outside of the two week company training) and can be very helpful.


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## lalachka (Aug 13, 2013)

Pax8 said:


> The point I was trying to make was that even though a person with pretty much any skill level can get the job, there ARE good trainers in retail who have previous experience. I never said anyone can learn to train in two weeks. :\ I only said that good trainers typically have previous experience, and that you usually need to research to find them. So even though admittedly, there are bad trainers that work for the company, there are also a lot of great trainers who have good experience (outside of the two week company training) and can be very helpful.


It would be helpful if the trainers were hired for their experience and then allowed to teach the class the way they see fit. 
Then yes, you research, find a good one and go there (not sure how you'd find the good ones but whatever) 
But it sounds like everyone is supposed to follow their curriculum to the letter and then I don't see how the trainer's creds make any diff if they're all made to spit out the same corporate stuff

ETA I thought your comment 'most people can't ' meant that some can (learn to train in 2 weeks) 
Probably misunderstood, just explaining why I said that


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Anyway, I'm pretty excited to interview for a job, any job, training dogs. Maybe I will learn amazing things from the two week intensive.


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Pax, can I expect to be expected to also cashier? Or do you just teach and sell classes?


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## Pax8 (Apr 8, 2014)

glowingtoadfly said:


> Pax, can I expect to be expected to also cashier? Or do you just teach and sell classes?


Usually, it's good to learn some things like cashiering simply because they'll probably want you to pitch in at some point. How much time is devoted solely to training will depend on if you are full time or part time and how busy the store is. If you are full time at a busy store, you'll be primarily training. If you're full time at a smaller store, you'll probably split duties between some training and helping out in one or two other departments like cashier or stocking when needed. 

If you're part time, it changes a bit because they can't have you working only training. I still can't get anyone to explain it to me fully, but it has something to do with allocation of hours. Typically part timer trainers do split department work. For example, I spend half my time working as a trainer (teaching classes, selling, connecting with customers, etc) and half my time working in the hotel which is one of the departments I've been trained in and wanted to spend the other half of my time in.

It's good to have a couple extra skills like cashiering and stocking even if you're full time just because you can help out around the store more. If you're part time, I would definitely take the initiative to learn as many skills as possible because it is easier for them to assign you hours to fill out your schedule. I'm obviously pet training, but I can also cashier, stock, do overnight resets, work hotel, work pet care, and I'm the go to person for animal nutrition (more something I taught myself than learned, but it helps with my general associate credibility). Next time I get a chance to do a certification, I'll probably be certified to work in grooming as a bather if needed as well. 

If your store has a hotel, I highly recommend asking about being certified to work in it. It is a great place to connect with customers and especially to connect with people who need dog training. You find a lot of people desperately trying to bleed energy out of their high energy working dog using day camp instead of training. I've gotten easily 40% of my class sales from customers who I've formed relationships with through the hotel after I saw their dog's behavior in day camp.


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Thank you!


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## Pax8 (Apr 8, 2014)

glowingtoadfly said:


> Thank you!


Yup, good luck! Hope you learn a lot and meet some great people! I tend to complain about it a lot, but it really can be a fun and rewarding job.


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

The trainer I know well has 20 plus years experience training at a club which she still does along with Petsmart. I'm not to sure how strict the curriculum is or methods because when I moved I took one class at a Petsmart closer to me and it was completely different, curriculum and method. I was so used to the other way that they let me teach it my way, which was different then everyone else. I wasn't changing what I knew and what every other dog in my house knew. I have spent so much time training at the one that they even okayed me using a prong on Midnite if I wanted to take a class with him.


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Pax, do you bring Kaiju as your demo dog?


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## misslesleedavis1 (Dec 5, 2013)

I am sure you rocked your interview


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## DJEtzel (Feb 11, 2010)

Regarding demo dogs, keep in mind that you only want to take a dog with as a demo dog if they are a bombproof dog. I only take recon to classes without kids, frag can go in place if there are kids... Dogs with bite histories, reactivity, etc. should not be used as demo dogs. That is a huge liability and stressor for your dog. Plus, an ill behaved demo dog can stress you out and make you and your training look awful.


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Yeah, Grim and Skadi both have issues so I asked the neighbors if I could use their more sociable husky puppy for a demo dog if I need one.


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Interview went great, they asked me to bring Skadi, she rocked it, but I declined the job. It would have been only one class per week, and was too far away. I get sweet benefits at my current job, and I wouldn't have gotten any there until I was fulltime. Plus it was a long commute. I'm a bit sad to have to decline, but my current job is pretty great.


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