Where to get Olive obedience training

For general socialization, and to get accustomed to receiving commands, we are considering PetsMart. For those outside the US, that's a large store geared towards selling items for household pets. They have "trained professionals" who do do the training with you and your pet. Can anyone speak to this? We sent our standard poodle off to be trained and paid $600 for 6 weeks to live with a family. It didn't really work in my opinion since she had to have a training collar on in order to listen at all. I don't want this for Olive....

Personally, I dislike programmes like that; I believe that they should only be used as a last result. A huge part of bonding and building trust with a dog occurs when you train him/her. Without that bond and trust, the dog is far less likely to feel comfortable around its owner.

Dogs don't overextend and generalise in the way that humans do either, so what they learn with one person/group of people in one place, they may not put into practice with other people. You can teach a dog commands, but there needs to be a measure of trust in order for a dog to respond to the command.

I also do not trust somebody else to physically take my dog away for training. They can have all the credentials and good reviews in the world, but they very often use equipment such as shock and spray collars, which I am against. As far as I'm concerned, my dog is my responsibility and is trained by me.

If I were you, I'd give it a go training her yourself before you consider sending her away for training elsewhere. In the long run, it'll be much better for you, your family and Olive.

Ah, sorry - I misread your post. I thought you meant that PetsMart was the boarding training. If it includes you and your dog together, by all means, it could be useful!

Oh yes, includes the both of us. It's more for bonding, socializing her, and getting her accustomed to hearing commands. Besides that, I'm a little rusty myself.

From the reviews I've read about it, it seems very useful, particularly as they have groups specifically designed for young puppies. The training itself seems reasonable as well, with a treat-based reward system. If you can afford it and think it could help you and Olive, it can't hurt to try!

honestly not my sort of thing at all, I'd rather train them myself at home, or visit puppy classes.

But if it's something you want to do, then go for it