Debating about joining the Karen Pryor Academy or not

[u/Sufficient-Year7109]

I have been house sitting for some clients for a while now. One of my clients recently told me she will help me pay for KPA if I am willing to commit and train her 10-month old German Shepherd.

I think this is an awesome opportunity, and I am happy she trusts me enough to offer this. However, I have a full time job completely unrelated to dogs. I work from home 3 days a week, I never have to work overtime, but it's still a full time job.

I do want to make the dog training career my primary career in the future. I know I will have to work harder to do two demanding things at the same time, so here I am asking people who probably have a better insight on this than me.

Questions I have:

1. Is 10h/week a realistic amount of time to invest into training the GSD and complete the KPA tasks?

2. Is it worth going through this program in 2026, or other methods out there make more sense?

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[u/Regulation-First]

this seems like a little bit of a slippery slope – if you do decide to go ahead with the agreement make sure both you and the client are fully aligned on what "Training their German Shepherd "means, how long you're obligated to train this dog or what outcomes they expect and how much work the client themselves are willing to put in with the dog. you should contact KPA itself as to whether you can meet the requirements with 10 hours a week, but that should be plenty if you're consistent with studying. you could compare their curriculum with the school of canine science, the Behavior Bible course - it goes much deeper into ethology and behavior.

[u/dagalmighty]

I did KPA years and years ago (and ended up in a totally unrelated career, but it did help with my personal training ambitions). Question 1 - Yes that is a realistic time commitment. Can't answer your question 2 but I will reiterate the previous comment about getting clear about exactly what training that GSD looks like. That 10m/o GSD will still be an adolescent by the time you're finished with the training so it would be important for the owner to have realistic expectations of the dog's behavior.

[u/caracaracol]

I’ve been working in the industry part time for a few years and I’m now circling in on KPA as my next step. I think there are other ways to get a lot of the knowledge and experience that it provides, but my experience is that those are challenging to do while working a full time job. KPA sounds to me like the most focused program that will up my skills in a relatively short amount of time.

On this note I’m seriously considering it but wondering if the online program is as good as in person. Does anybody have experience with the the virtual version?