Make moolah by training dogs in India

For all the dog lovers out there, it turns out that you can make a lucrative career by training the friendly, four-legged animals. Shirin Merchant, India’s first canine behaviourist, promises that with the right kind of training, you can well be on your way to becoming a certified dog trainer.

Merchant, who runs an institute for training dog trainers, says that two weeks is all one needs to set up a business in the field.

“I put together a course that would teach people to become dog trainers and another one that would people to handle their own dogs,” she says, adding that there are about 5,000 dog trainers working all across the country, including Bangalore.

“When I started out, if you had asked me if one can actually make a career out of training dogs, I would have been honest and said ‘no’. But things have changed today. Many of my students are earning anywhere between Rs 20,000 to Rs 1 lakh per month,” she says.

The two week course (held in Mumbai, where the next session will start in October), focuses on everything, from setting up an entrepreneurial venture to selecting puppies that need to be trained. The course even includes a few dog tricks and Merchant says everyone from students to men suffering from mid-life crisis end up benefiting from the course.


As for dog owners themselves, Merchant advices that hiring a dog trainer for a period of two months is more than enough. “The training of the dog should start from the second the puppy walks into your home, because if you don’t set the rules right at the beginning, it’s not fair on the dog to impose sudden rules later in its life. Usually, training lasts for two months with three-day classes per week.

After that, the dog owners should take it upon themselves to keep their puppy happy and in line,” she adds.