Recently it has come to my attention that euthanasia for behavioral problems in dogs seems to be on the rise in my area. However, when I looked into who was making the call, I was disappointed and alarmed. It appears that trainers have taken to recommending euthanasia over the phone for dogs they haven’t seen in person – and people are following their advice.

Many of these dogs sadly could have been helped or worse, might have been displaying behaviors that were normal and were wrongly “diagnosed” over the phone.

My first thought about this is we have no data to even prove that statement. Someone’s opinion on what they think they have seen a handful of times isn’t enough to make it factual information.

I have had many clients not helped by both other force-free trainers and more punitive trainers. My guess as to why? The trainers both aren’t experience enough in their methods to successfully handle that case. End of story. Nothing more and nothing less.