Are These Dog Training Courses Effective And Worth Your Money?
Don’t know where to start with training your pup? Can’t afford an expensive professional dog trainer? Online dog training programs are becoming an increasingly popular alternative for busy and budget-conscious pet parents. One of the major players is DIYK9, which offers on-demand courses you can follow as your schedule allows. Many customers rave about its courses, but are they the right fit for you? Find out in our DIYK9 review.
DIYK9 Review
Product Name: DIYK9
Product Description: DIYK9 is an online dog training program that offers eight training courses for dogs of all ages.
Summary
I highly recommend DIYK9’s courses. The lessons are highly effective, and you can use the program whenever it fits into your daily schedule. The program’s owner and trainer has a fun, energetic, and extremely knowledgeable approach to training.
I determine the overall rating based on several factors, including the variety and quality of courses, effectiveness, price, customer service and reputation, and more.
Pros
- Program has an excellent reputation
- All lessons taught by a certified police dog trainer and handler and experienced pet trainer
- Most courses use positive reinforcement training (except Unleashed!, which uses e-collar corrections)
- Can start right away with instant access
- Live Q&A sessions and community forum (with membership)
- 30-day money-back guarantee on individual courses
- Can cancel monthly membership any time
Cons
- Expensive compared to many online dog training programs
- Not as wide of a variety of specific individual courses than some other programs
- No mobile app (but you can still view the web-based lessons on your phone)
Key Features
- All lessons are taught by professional dog trainer Garret Wing, who has over 20 years of extensive experience training and working with police dogs (his credentials are impressive)
- All courses include easy-to-follow instructions with high-quality videos
- On-demand lessons you can do when it’s convenient for your schedule
- Gives you the ability to choose only the courses you need instead of paying a monthly fee like some other top online training programs
- Can ask questions in the comment section during the course and get fast responses from Wing or his team
- Every course is designed to meet the needs of all breeds
- Memberships give you access to special perks like live Q&A sessions with Wing
DIYK9 Courses
DIYK9 offers eight different courses, all led by Garret Wing with assistance from his team of professional trainers. Courses have multiple step-by-step lessons that are easy to follow as you progress through the course.
One of the things pet parents love the most about Wing’s approach is that it goes far beyond just giving you training steps. Wing shares his expertise in canine behavior, giving you a thorough understanding of how and why you’re using each technique to train your pup. Here are some of his most popular courses.
DIYK9 Obedience 101
Obedience training is a perfect place to start if you’re a beginner with little to no experience training pups. With the help of this course, you can teach your dog how to sit, stay, come when you call (recall), focus, heel, place, go to his crate, and more. It uses positive reinforcement training through rewards, hand commands, and verbal commands. With steady training, DIYK9 says that many dogs can master all of these skills less than two weeks.
DIYK9 Leashed!
This course is an excellent alternative to Obedience 101. It gives you all the tools you’ll need to teach your pup on-leash obedience. It includes training your pup with all the commands included in the Obedience 101 course, plus it teaches you how to master leash control — one of the most important aspects of dog training.
DIYK9 Unleashed! 5 Steps To E-Collar Mastery
Want to take your doggo almost anywhere with you? Unleashed! is one of the most popular online courses to train your pup to behave well off-leash using an e-collar (an electronic remote training collar). But this course offers so much more. With over 30 hours of training content, it’s designed to help you and your pup master many skills and eliminate common behavior problems. Some of the benefits for you and your canine sidekick include:
- Reliable recall (coming to you when called)
- Ignoring distractions while on walks
- Stopping unwanted behaviors such as jumping, excessive barking, digging, counter-surfing, and much more
- Freedom to run off-leash in public places
This course is suitable for all dogs over four months old. However, DIYK9 recommends starting with Obedience 101 or Leashed! before tackling Unleashed! With regular training, it can take 4-6 weeks to achieve full off-leash ability.
Are E-Collars Humane?
While some remote training collars do have a static correction element (shock), you’ll always start out training your pup on the lowest settings: tones and vibrations. The use of static correction is always optional. This course guides you through how to properly and humanely use them.
DIYK9 The Perfect Walk
Is your pup a nightmare to take on walks? If so, this could be the perfect course for you. The Perfect Walk consists of 30 videos with step-by-step instructions that tackle everything from how to stop pulling and lunging to how to train your pup to ignore distractions while on a walk. It’s extremely detailed and addresses many different issues and scenarios, including:
- The proper way to hold a leash
- How to read a dog’s body language
- The best way to introduce your dog to another dog on a walk
- What to do if you encounter a loose dog on your walk
- How to stop unwanted people from petting your dog
- What to do if another dog attacks your dog
- And much more
DIYK9 Puppy Essentials Bundle
The Puppy Essentials Bundle has 20 hours of material that covers everything you need to effectively train your puppy from eight weeks to six months old. You start with the essentials of potty and crate training and move on to teaching house manners, curbing puppy biting, proper socialization, and nipping early signs of behavior problems in the bud. This course can set your pup up to be a well-behaved, happy dog for years to come.
If you don’t need the whole bundle, you can purchase some of the lessons below separately instead of buying the bundle.
- Puppy Biting & Manners
- Potty Training
- Crate Training
Price
DIYK9 gives you several options to get the training you need, along with some special perks.
Individual & Bundled Courses
You’ll have access to courses for one year after your purchase. DIYK9 has a 30-day money-back guarantee on courses if you’re not satisfied.
- Single courses: range from $119 – $697
- Complete Training Set bundle: $1,499
- View all options
Monthly & Annual Memberships
Monthly and annual memberships include instant access to “The Perfect Walk,” a 10% discount on courses, monthly live Q&A sessions and training demonstrations with Garret Wing, community forum access, and a few other perks.
- Monthly: $24.99/month
- Annual: $199 ($16.99/month)
Premium Membership
Premium membership includes the membership perks above, plus weekly private live Q&A sessions with Garret Wing, exclusive lessons, and free access to all future courses. You can get a refund for this membership within 30 days as long as you haven’t watched more than 10 video lessons.
- One-time fee: $1,499 (for all existing courses)
- Monthly: $99
DIYK9 Coupon
Click here to get the best possible price available for DIYK9.
Does Pet Insurance Cover Dog Training?
Most pet insurance providers exclude training in their policy coverage. However, Embrace covers behavioral training when administered by a veterinarian for a covered condition. Embrace’s wellness plans (which are not insurance products and are optional add-ons to insurance policies) can also be used to cover the cost of training classes. Each of these is extremely rare in pet insurance coverage, so if you want training included, Embrace is your best bet. Read our Embrace review to learn more and our pet insurance comparison to see how other providers stack up.
Want To See Garret Wing’s Style?
Before you commit to a course, check out this brief video to see if you like his training style.
DYIK9 Review: What’s My Final Verdict?
In my opinion, the only downside to DIYK9 is the hefty price tag compared to many other online training courses. However, it’s still more affordable than hiring an in-person professional dog trainer. Plus, Garret Wing’s extensive experience is a huge selling point. I think DIYK9 is totally worth the cost if you can afford it.
If you’re not sure DIYK9 is the best fit for you and your canine counterpart (or your budget), you may want to check out similar options in our reviews of the best online dog training courses and dog training apps. And if you’re trying to correct a specific behavior, like whining or digging holes, you can also learn more in our training articles.
Why Trust Canine Journal?
In addition to extensively training her own dogs, Sally has conducted hundreds of hours of research into the most current and effective training methods to give our readers detailed training tutorials. She’s also thoroughly evaluated dozens of online dog training courses and apps to recommend only the best. Sally’s part of an experienced team at Canine Journal that is committed to the health and welfare of all furry family members.
Tagged With: Crate Training, Housetraining
