Madeline Deaton

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Pet owners believe that a service provider's concern for the welfare of their pet matches their own.  But there is a decided and definite disconnect between what is advertised and what is being delivered...  

By definition, people who use pet care businesses are looking for services to insure the welfare of their pets.  These services are often selected based on a perception that the service is the best available, at a reasonable price and in a convenient location. Part of what is being purchased is “peace of mind.” Take the dog owner who might worry that a dog is bored or lonely when the owner is away from home for 12 hours a day.  Providing for the pet’s welfare by purchasing the services of a dog walker or a doggy day care establishment allows the owner the valuable belief that their companion animal is well cared for. And when it comes to paying for services such as grooming or training, stress free handling is part of what pet owners believe they are paying for. 

Workers entering the pet care services field love animals and may expect that every interaction will be enjoyable for them and the pets they work with, the reality mostly doesn't match.  The work is not easy and involves mostly manual labor in loud and smelly environments. What may be the hardest part, is the realization that other people’s animals do not respond to groomers or handlers with ease or familiarity without owners around because of a history of bad experiences in these situations, unfamiliar environments, and other reasons including inappropriate handling because the person has not learned or been taught an informed, humane approach.  

Unfortunately, along with no regulatory requirements for formal education or licensing not even a rudimentary knowledge of animal behavior and stress free handing are required or trained by most pet care service establishments.  Even more disturbing is the fact that even if people want to learn on their own, popular literature on animal behavior and training offers misleading and conflicting information and is now often dominated by the resurgence in force based compulsion training and handling methods relying on outdated dominance theories and punishment devices. such as prong, choke or shock collars (now called “training” collars).  

Pet care services establishments are businesses that keep an eye on what makes the most sense for them time wise, the bottom line and their profit.  That's fine, unless it leads to the conditons found all too frequently: 

• overcrowding

• pets kept in rooms without toys or furniture

• as many as 30 dogs or more at a time, looked after by one person

• loud and discordant music played for staff- even as studies find this disturbs pets while classical music benefits pets

• resulting boredom leading to displacement behaviors such as feces eating, fighting or repetitive mounting

• The use of punishment for behavioral control, including yelling, scruffing, hitting, rolling dogs over, spraying them with water, placing them in extended isolation a/k/a "time outs," reliance on restraints such as crates, muzzles and being tied to walls.

• Force based compulsion training, including the use of prong, choke or shock collars (euphemistically called "training" collars).

• limited or no outdoor walks

• insufficient sanitation, including the over-application of strong chemical cleaners such as bleach, to the point where both workers and pets suffer respiratory and/or skin irritation. 

• And in extreme cases, even the loss of the pet's life

If pet owners were aware of the way their pets were treated at most pet care services they would not be back.  

Meeting the challenge of overcoming insufficient training and harmful practices is what PetCenterEd is all about.  Ensuring our pets are cared for with the competent professionalism they deserve is what PetCenterEd is all about.  We want to empower pet care service learners with a strong foundational knowledge of the science of animal behavior, learning theory, biology and stress free handling, along with the time and oversight needed to develop a standardized level of applied skill so they can be the best at what they do for the pets they work with and themselves. That is what PetCenterEd is all about.  

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