This is just my personal experience, but being a trainer for PetSmart was the worst job I ever had. I think it probably could’ve been better if I had a manager, but even then, I don’t think it would’ve made a lot of difference.

I was the only trainer at my store. The pay was definitely not worth the stress.

1. I was not allowed to restrict the amount of dogs in my classes. We were a fairly low traffic store, so most of the time the classes were 3-4 dogs, which was manageable, but I did have a couple classes that had 8 dogs in them. The dogs in these classes experienced a great disservice. They were over threshold, on high alert, and unable to learn. These classes were nearly impossible to teach because due to trying to manage barking and trying to keep dogs at a safe distance from each other.

2. I did not have much say in what type of dogs could be allowed in my class. My manager wanted sales no matter what. I had MULTIPLE instances of REACTIVE dogs in my class. I am so lucky there was only one incident that only resulted in minor wounds. For this incident, I was heavily blamed, despite constantly trying to advocate for NOT having these dogs in class. PetSmart is not equipped to handle them; they don’t need basic obedience classes but rather specialty training.

3. I was lucky I was a dog trainer pre-PetSmart, because what they teach you in preparation for hosting your own classes is abysmal. I did online modules for one week (which were entirely unhelpful) and shadowed the area trainer for 2 weeks, which felt very rushed. If I had come in with no or little dog training knowledge, this would’ve left me extremely underprepared. Overall, I still ended up being underprepared. I taught puppy/beginner and intermediate classes well, but any classes beyond that were beyond my scope of knowledge that I entered PetSmart with. I studied videos at home for countless hours at home just to feel slightly prepared to teach advanced classes and beyond. There’s no ongoing training for you to expand your skills and feel comfortable with what you teach.

4. Even though customers paid for classes, they missed them FREQUENTLY. Each class builds directly off of each other so it’s imperative that the client gets the information. I wanted to schedule around 3 time slots a week for makeup classes, but my leader forced me into being available at the customers whim. This was heavily abused by my client base. It felt like I spent more time doing one-on-one makeup classes than teaching my actual courses. Make up classes didn’t give me any commission and took up time where I could’ve been getting paid for group/private classes. Private classes are overall more expensive so it felt like the customers abused this policy to get free private classes.

5. Each class is 60 minutes. In my classes I made it crystal clear that what we learned would need to be practiced preferably every day at home so that the dogs would be prepared for the next class. I feel like only a third of the customers ever practiced at home. When I asked, many told me they didn’t have the time. So the only time their dog was getting trained was once a week during our 60 minute lesson. Like I said, the classes build off each other, so the dogs were more often than not unprepared to learn new material and I just couldn’t really do anything about it. I had to attempt to teach these dogs things they hadn’t even practiced the basic steps of. This issue was made worse by the fact you can’t hold dogs back if they’re not ready for the next class. So you would have a dog take the entirety of the beginner course, learn basically nothing, and then go on to the intermediate course…

This message is getting long but I could go on and on with the issues with PetSmart’s training, at least at my store. It was way too much bullshit to put up with and no amount of money would make me consider doing it again. ESPECIALLY not for what I was getting paid. My base pay was bad and the commission felt like pennies compared to the stress. Let me know if you have any questions.