From Police Officer to K9 Companions: Jos Smith’s Journey in Dog Training

For me, the most rewarding part of being a dog trainer is you get to work with dogs all the time, which I think is fantastic. But it’s more than that. You get to help both an animal live its best life and often help a family as well because a lot of people genuinely love their pets but don’t always know the right things to do or have the right guidance. I absolutely love, especially when I have a challenging case, to have the owner come back to me, whether it’s in a week, a month, or a year, and say, “You’ve changed my life and our dog’s life. We’re so much better bonded as a family, and they can do the things they would like to do.”

Even though I’ve had lots of bits and pieces of experience, there is so much information out there in the dog training world, and a lot of it isn’t all that great. Having known one of your fantastic trainers, Fiona, and her connection with the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers, I knew this course would be a wonderful overarching course that would cover a really broad range of topics and instill the right methodologies. So I really wanted to have that qualification going forward in my dog career.

It’s really important for dog trainers to hold a formal qualification because, unfortunately, it’s a really unregulated industry with a lot of bad information out there. A lot of the work I do is because someone has seen a trainer who has not done a formal qualification, they’ve given them the wrong information, and the dog has ended up in a worse situation. The correct knowledge wasn’t there, and I think it is absolutely critical that if somebody is looking for a trainer, they look for a trainer with a proper qualification, such as the Certificate IV in Animal Behaviour and Training.

One of the most important things I learned on the course was really delving into dog body language. Often, being humans, we are verbal and can misread cues of dog body language. The course really got into how you actually read and communicate with the dog by understanding their body language better. The second great thing was learning about client interactions. We had mock setups of how to talk to a client and discuss better ways of communicating technical language so clients can understand and implement training with their dog.

The thing I enjoyed most about the course was the people. We had fantastic instructors and great support staff, but it was also wonderful to work with a network of trainers, some very inexperienced and some with a lot of experience. That bond and connection have led to a long-term network I can rely on.

This qualification ensures that when people look at my site, they can verify that I have undertaken something properly. Because the qualification is nationally recognised, people can be confident that the trainers who come out of this course know what they are doing. They can be satisfied that they are getting value for money and that the dogs will be treated correctly and ethically. That is the most important part of having this formal qualification.

Since finishing the course, I went back to my private dog training business and formally set it up as a charity called K9 Companions Australia. Our charity aims to pair military veterans or current serving military, police, fire, and ambulance workers and their families with a rescue dog to improve mental health and help rescue dogs through their trauma.

To anybody thinking about studying this course, I would say stop thinking and do it. Whether you are starting out as a dog trainer, don’t have formal qualifications and have been a dog trainer, or have done other courses in the past, this course will solidify everything together and give you the formal qualification you need to go into many different areas in the dog training industry.