Best Online Dog Training 2021 (By A Professional Trainer)

What’s the best online dog training? What a minefield! Because finding a local dog trainer wasn’t hard enough — now here’s a world of options.

As always, here I am, making it much more digestible for you. 

I’ve gone through and assessed a whole bunch of online training programmes in order to create you a shortlist — you’ll notice that they’re not ranked that, rather, they’re niched to solve your problem. 

Dog training is one of those things, that if you don’t take the prevention methods, that in the future, you will likely need some sort of resolution, whether that’s for simple things like door dashing, or more complex things like reactivity. 

I’ve covered a number of things in this list to help you guys find the right and best option for your dog. 

There is a little prerequisite knowledge referred to, but I do try to explain as I go along! 

Measurements

I want to discuss the parameters of this with you, so that if someone is missing? You may realise why they’re not here, and this may give you a great introduction to that information. 

✅ People Friendly 

It’s really important that the training is actually understandable? Where I find a lot of trainers go wrong with online training is that they pack it full of jargon so that they look intelligent or ‘professional’ and forget that their audience doesn’t necessarily understand what DS/CC means. That boundary inhibits the effectiveness of the learning experience, so I’ve made sure these are all normal people friendly! 

✅ Effective

Training has to be effective, right? I mean, there’s just no point in training that isn’t effective. I’ve either taken these courses, know the people who run it, or I’ve examined it in detail along with the feedback they receive. I want to provide you guys with the best solutions for your problems! And as a professional trainer? I’m actually uniquely positioned to give you that insight.

✅ Positive Training

Fear free, force free, science based, reward based – whatever you want to call it, it has to be modern training, because I won’t see outdated methodology supported on this site. I want the best for you and your pup, as a consequence? I want you guys to rock it.

✅ Cost

Not all training costs the same, partially because some of the training is entirely hands off from the trainer, or it’s a ‘group’ setting, or it’s much more hands on and supportive. As you can imagine, the more of your trainers time you need to take, this will cost most. However, these online programmes are often much more affordable than 1:1 training which is often all that is available for niche problems… that’s not the case online though! 

The Shortlist

The Best Online Dog Training For Quick Results: Sexier Than A Squirrel, AbsoluteDogs
The Best Online Dog Training For Parents With Dogs: Your First Week Home With Dog & Baby, Pooch Parenting.
The Best Online Dog Training For Separation Anxiety: Solve the Stress of Separation Anxiety Course PLUS Consultation Package, Barket Place
The Best Online Dog Training For Reactivity: Tackling Reactivity Online Course, Spirit Dog Training
The Best Online Dog Training For Fireworks & Thunderstorm Fears: Sound Advice: Conquering Noise Sensitivity, Fenzi Dog Sport Academy
The Best Online Dog Training For Free: KikoPup 

A wonderful group of trainers, behaviourists, and courses, and below, I’m going into them in more detail so you can see if they’re appropriate for you!

(NOTE: All prices are accurate at time of posting and may vary. Prices are listed in $, USD and £, GBP depending on the programme.)

2021’s Best Online Dog Training Courses

The Best Online Dog Training For Quick Results 

Sexier Than A Squirrel, AbsoluteDogs

Ideal For: Dog parents who need a little more attentiveness from their dog
Cost: $32
Link: Sexier Than A Squirrel

One of the biggest piece of feedback that you hear from AbsoluteDogs’ customers? Is “It’s so fun!”. 

I love that concept. I love that they’re helping you and your dog hone in on the fun in your relationship. The premise behind this training is that if your dog wants to be with you? That they’ll listen and respond better. 

Which is a solid principle and yields great results. 

This course comprises of a 25 day challenge – pretty short – that focuses on making training into games with your dog. 

The Best Online Dog Training For Parents With Dogs

Your First Week Home With Dog & Baby, Pooch Parenting

Ideal For: New parents who have a dog at home, or parents bringing home a new dog or puppy.
Cost: $36
Link: Your First Week Home With Dog & Baby

This is run by Michelle Stern, a wonderful, knowledgeable woman who has a fantastically gentle demeanour. This really resonates with her audience, and she has some wonderful results with her clients. 

The aim of this particular course is to show you, a new parent, or a parent introducing a dog to the family, this course is perfect for you. It’s done without judgement, without embarrassment and done with safety, love and care in mind

The Best Online Dog Training For Separation Anxiety

Solve the Stress of Separation Anxiety Course PLUS Consultation Package, Barket Place

Ideal For: Parents of a dog who struggles to be away from them
Cost: £199
Link: Solve The Stress Of Separation Anxiety

Caroline Wilkinson who runs Barket Place, is a behaviourist who is dedicating her time to helping families and their dogs. One of my favourite courses from Caroline is her Seperation anxiety course with a consultation. 

To me? You can learn a lot from the hands off approach, give yourself a great grounding, but that when that is done, it can raise a lot of questions, and the best way to get these answered? Is a consult.

With this, you can sit down with Caroline and wrap up the last parts

The Best Online Dog Training For Reactivity

Tackling Reactivity Online Course, Spirit Dog Training

Ideal For: Parents of a reactive dog (barking and lunging at a person or dog)
Cost: $49
Link: Tackling Reactivity Online Course

Reactivity is seriously tough. And dealing with it on your own, is even tougher. So, finding help is something you should be confident with. Finding a course that will put you on the right track can be invaluable. Spirit Dog training do this for you. 

They give great help on understanding counter conditioning (the act of telling your dog a scary thing is not scary) to help you turn your 

The Best Online Dog Training For Fireworks & Thunderstorm Fears

Sound Advice: Conquering Noise Sensitivity, Fenzi Dog Sport Academy

Ideal For: Dog parents whose dogs struggle with fireworks or thunder
Cost: $260
Link: Sound Advice: Conquering Noise Sensitivity
Another common issue for dogs (and one that needs to be paid more attention to) is for dogs who are scared of loud noises, such as fireworks and thunderstorms. These are common issues that can cause immense stress in our dogs lives, and yet… they can actually be quite simply overcome. 

Fenzi’s Sound Advice (love the name, Fenzi! Good job!) is a great way to help you desensitise your dog to these events that are beyond your control. 

The difference in Fenzi’s class, and why I love that it is what it is, and is entirely worth the cost (in my opinion) is that these are small group lectures where you, and other dog parents who are struggling with the same thing. You can learn together. And I (personally) find those sorts of programmes to be the very best learning environments! 

The Best Online Dog Training For Free Advice

KikoPup, Free

Whilst this may not be targeting your problem directly, Kikopup offers a wonderful resource for puppy parents to watch modern training methods in application and can help you to conquer a number of problems – for free – so long as you can watch and apply the gained knowledge. 

Think Your Online Programme Deserves To Be On The List? 

Get in touch! Let’s chat and you can present your case! Let’s have a chat about what it is you offer, why you’re great at it, and what makes your programme the best out there.

Need A Different Recommendation? 

Reach out! And I’m happy to see if I can source something for your specific problem. I’ll be updating this list semi-regularly, as goodness only knows that there are courses springing up all the time!

The Benefits Of Online Dog Training

It’s tough sometimes to know whether online dog training will work for you. So, I want to run through some really great benefits to online dog training.

Risk Free

On the instance you have a reactive dog – you need to keep all involved safe. Your dog will feel more confident without some weirdo (fondly said, because I am a trainer and consequently one of those Weirdos too) standing beside them – this will ease them into the training quicker, though perhaps the same cannot be said for you. Still, you can re-watch the content over and over, and get much more learning time with the trainer (As it were) for usually a much lower cost.

Do It At Your Leisure

This is one of the biggest things. You’re not at the mercy of a trainer’s waiting list. You’re able to access this information on demand. Yep. Simple stuff, right? But that means your training can keep progressing, and doesn’t have to wait for further input.

Most Comes With Support!

Most of this training comes with some sort of support! It comes with a modicum of comfort that you can ask questions, contact the trainer and find information specific to you. That aspect can be very valuable for you in order to know how to tweak the advice to be perfect. 

You learn by doing

Lastly? It makes you learn what your dog needs, how to approach it and helps you understand the why as well. When you do these things yourself, as opposed to send your dog off for training, you will achieve much better results throughout your dogs life, than in just this one off issue. 

What do you think? 

I think with this? You’re prepared for most training issues your dog might present. Just remember that the best training? Is the training that prevents the problem in the future. Prevention is better than cure, so remember, there is very little equivalent to starting off on the right foot and paw, and that’s what I specialise in.  So, if you need me? Well, you’re already on my site! Drop me a line…

Would any of these be useful to you or a friend? Know someone who’s looking for help? Make sure and share the blog!

(Please be aware that some of these are affiliate links – but they were sourced and shortlisted before I asked for affiliation! These are genuinely the best courses available on the market right now for these niche problems, I wouldn’t put my name to it if I didn’t know these would work for you! Please see the affiliate disclosure for more info! )