How many sessions will I need?

Depending on what you are looking to solve you may only need an hour or two with an expert to troubleshoot and provide alternative recommendations of routine etc. This is especially the case if you’ve done puppy training with us or your dog is a part of our walking service regularly and something has just cropped up in adolescence! When clients come to us from other trainers we sometimes need a slightly more intensive routine - particularly if they’ve come from a balanced trainer who used corrections. Once weekly rolling sessions generally work very well for most of our clients unless there is an urgent matter at hand.

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Why do you use treats? Why won't my dog just do things to please me?

Treats are a primary reinforcer. Being positively reinforced will mean that your dog is more likely to repeat a behaviour. Upon commencement of sessions your trainer will establish a hierarchy of rewards for your individual dog. For dogs learning new behaviours, a high rate of reinforcement is needed and using small, high quality treats is a great way to do this - for most dogs! Our human society is structured on rewards systems and a lot of bonding is done with food**

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Why don’t you run group classes?

Some dogs work fantastically well in group or puppy classes however from our own experience this is very tricky for a trainer to evaluate prior to sign up. Perhaps your puppy would be totally overwhelmed in even a well run, small group situation and a bad experience in early weeks could influence how they view other dogs or their humans for the rest of their life! A lot of what we do is promoting a trusting relationship between owner and dog and the best way to ensure this is one-to-one. We never want to set a dog up to fail - nor their owner! So it is far better to take it at their own pace and read all their individual signals as we go. We are incredibly lucky to have access to a great many beautifully behaved stooge dogs whom we walk daily so should socialisation or other dogs be a factor in your concerns for your pup then we can borrow one of our trusted walking pups. A reason that many trainers do classes is to offer a cost effective option for owners whilst still being lucrative to their business however we are extremely lucky to have multi tiered prices and trainers within our team so that we can offer you our full attention and answer all the questions you may have at yours and your dogs own pace.

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What is your cancellation policy?

For rolling weekly sessions you may stop them at any time and we will be super happy that your pup has graduated and be able to offer the time slot to another dog in need! We try and offer the fairest cancellation policy that we can and do not bill for anything over 48hrs. However, if we find that someone is  regularly unreliable then you will lose your slot and it will be offered to someone on the waiting list.

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Why do I have to attend the sessions myself?

The more you put in, the more you get out. More often than not it is us as humans that need to amend what we are doing and communication barriers are one of the initial topics our trainers usually address. The bond between dog and owner - particularly in the city when exposed to constant distractions, triggers and stressors - is extremely important and we are experts in troubleshooting when that bond is not as strong as it could be! Sometimes it is useful for other members of the household to attend for transferal of skills and our trainers are very used to running sessions with young children to teach them how to be as kind as possible to their new best friend. If you are extremely busy and require more of a maintenance type service please discuss our mentoring option as it is useful run alongside the training sessions if your week is jam packed.

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Why does telling my dog off not work?

Both science and experience based studies show that attempting to extinguish behaviours with negative techniques only causes further issues and stressors on your dog and your relationship. Baby pups may listen but if they grow up fearing consequences of new behaviours they don't have the confidence to thrive in our busy city life. When dogs reach adolescence the trust and reinforcement history practiced previously will be tested as their hormones go wild and brain undergoes many changes. Saying no repeatedly - as we all know - only causes frustration. Frustration if experienced regularly can cul.minate in anxiety and rage - essentially aggression - which is everything we are looking to avoid with our dogs.

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Why should we choose Kensington Hounds?

Along with our research and study we have combined dog training experience of 30+ years across our wonderful team and are the lucky owners - between us - to seven lovely happy dogs. This, and our commitment to continuous professional development and adaptation of all our courses and readings to our tricky Kensington & Chelsea environment ensures that there should be someone the perfect fit for you and your pup. We are SO lucky to be able to bounce ideas and techniques between the senior and younger members of our team and have access to a great many stooge dogs whom we know extremely well. 

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