What is the difference between a Behaviorist and an Obedience Trainer?

We see it this way: a behaviorist deals with the underlying behavioral issues that a dog is experiencing by first identifying these issues and then working through them on a primal, psychological level. A behaviorist understands the angles of body language, transitional cues, the nuances of eye contact, quickness of a dog's reaction, etc. A trainer more tailored to obedience and not behavioral issues may have a good deal of knowledge, but for the most part, maintain the objective to shape our dogs into positions using verbal/non-verbal commands, such as a "sit" or "down," while not addressing the psychological components involved.

Being obedience trainers as well, we at VK9TA felt a key piece of knowledge was missing, knowledge of how the dog's mind was functioning when these "tricks" were being performed. You can see this in action when your neighbor repeatedly tells his dog to "stay" in the yard when another dog/handler walk by. The body may have physically stayed (or have been restrained), but mind and focus are gone. The mind-body connection is what we needed to understand in order to better assist our clients as well as our own dogs. We needed to be better informed as an obedience instructors by becoming behaviorists. After traveling to Los Angeles and working extensively with Linn Boyke, one of only three apprentices of Cesar Millan (National Geographic Channels "Dog Whisperer") at his Zen4K9s School of Dog Psychology, we now have the answer to those questions that remained unanswered throughout our "obedience training only" days. We look forward to sharing this knowledge and experience with you and your dog!


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