Dunbar Academy

Easy, Effective and Enjoyable Dog Training Techniques

Sunday 11 June 2017, by Claudia Álvarez, Manuel Martínez, Maria Antònia Ferrer

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A. The main facts about the activities of the company.

Dr. Ian Dunbar is a veterinarian, animal behaviorist and dog trainer. He is graduated in veterinary medicine. Also, he received a Special Honors degree in Physiology and Biochemistry from London University. In 1982, he designed the first off-leash dog socialization and training classes. The same year he started to train the dogs this way.

On the other hand, he participated in some projects related with animals. He created the American Kennel Club’s Gazzette “Behaviour” column, in which he has been writing for seven years. Also, he participated in a popular UK television programm “Dogs with Dunbar”

But, the most important, what about the company?. He have two lines in his organization. On the one hand, he is the founder of SIRIUS. SIRIUS is a original puppy training program. SIRIUS was created to offer puppy classes and dog training. The trainings are free of punishments and dog leashes. On the other hand, he is the founder of other important academy, DUNBAR ACADEMY. This academy is aimed to Professional dog trainers, and anyone considering becoming a dog trainer, Dog Shelter and Rescue Organization personnel, Vet Techs and Veterinarians.

Nowadays, DUNBAR ACADEMY is offering great variety of courses to learn about different topics about dog training. Some of the courses are, for example, are “Simple Solutions for Common Dog Behavior Problems” or “Practical Behaviour Information for Veterinary Practitioners”.

B. The Ethical challenges this company is addressing.

The first challenge both Dr. Dunbar and his company had to face was defying the belief that puppies could not be trained, since most of dog owners and trainers did not attend training classes until the dog entered adolescence. Based on his research job, and basing on Pavlov’s classical conditioning, he developed a training method for puppies, who could attend his classes as soon as they were vaccinated (3 months old).

The classes were off-leash, a thing very commonly used in most classes by the 80s, so his new method was quite revolutionary. His aim was to abbandon the leash-jerk-correction methods used by dog trainers, that he discovered were not useful on correcting the dog’s behaviour, since most dog owners had poor timing, and this punishments only hurt the dog and its relation with its owner.

He was one of the fathers of the lure-reward training method. In Dunbar Academy, where he trains dog proffesionals, he aims to educate dog trainers so they are able to educate dog owners, based on the premise that an educated dog will be a loved dog, and a loved dog will be a happy dog.

C. What makes you believe this company is really ethical and why you trust it?

The most ethical part of the company and Dr. Dunbar’s way of working is solely based on the fact that he is not only training dog owners, but also training dog proffesionals that will later on educate dog trainers. His training method is simple, even kids can train dogs easily.

The main goal of the company is to educate as much people as possible. Two books written by Ian Dunbar himself were published (BEFORE you get your puppy and AFTER you get your puppy) and distributed among many citizens of the US, but he later decided to give free access to this books so dog professionals would distributed them so his teaching could reach as many people as possible.

Also, eventhough Dr. Dunbar teaches classes himself, he is not reluctant on helping other dog trainers set their own businesses, and he gives many seminars and webinars with advice for them, so this makes his company ethic because he is solely serving it educational purpose, not caring of helping possible market competitors.

D.The possible challenges facing the company in the future and how you think this company may improve.

One of the main challenges the Dunbar Academy has been facing recently is its pricing. A group of members of the academy, calle the "Top Dogs", are the ones who monthly pay a subscription to the academy so they have complete access to all of its resources. The company just this very last month (Juny of 2017) went from charging 10 dollars per month to doubling its price, now being 20 dollars per month. The important part of this is that people who was already suscribed keeps paying the initial price, and that is a way of being ethic and also thanking these "top dogs" for their trust.

One of the other problems the academy is facing is the fact that since they are based on the United States, and their academy material is just provided in English, so one of the company’s challenges might be traslating everything into other languages if they want to follow their objective of reaching as much people as possible.

This company also faces cultural barries, since their methods might be fitting to the "american" society, since it’s based on education, saying that every dog can be educated to be a good dog, defying the classic European belief that a dog is very influenced by its breed (and the belief that certaing breeds might never be educated). Also, in other cultures in which hurting a dog might not be seed as a violent or aggresive act, such as some asian or african communties, the academy ways might not be well seen, as they hardly use harsh punishments on dogs.

Bibliography

https://www.dunbaracademy.com/

Location: United States of America

Sector: Education

Official website: https://www.dunbaracademy.com/

Nbr. visits: 318