Karen Pryor Academy

Karen Pryor Academy is a canine clicker training academy with numerous locations around the United States.
I had been a dog training instructor and had studied dogs and dog training for years, so I thought that enrolling in this academy would be a great way to improve my prospects and start a real career as a dog training and behavior instructor and consultant.
The school was almost entirely online with four weekend workshops every few months. The online portion included graduate level academic studies, essays, term papers and tests which covered detailed aspects of clicker training as well as a chapter on canine behavior. We were required to practice what we were learning with our own dogs at home. While working online, my classmates and I had absolutely zero input from the instructor, who was busy traveling and teaching around the world in between workshops. In addition to the hefty $ 5000 tuition, students had to take care of the cost of travel and lodging to four weekend workshops where students practiced various forms of clicker training with their own dogs and eventually worked a day or two at the end of the program as mock instructors with the other students and their dogs. The final exams included a test which covered the entire program, a chained set of behaviors with our own dogs, and a short mock dog training session with the other students.
I found that I did not get enough dog training foundation nor input from the program instructor both online and during the workshops. Since many of the other students were more experienced and highly competitive, neither they nor the instructor had the time nor the patience to support those of us who were not as proficient. Along with this lack of support, the Karen Pryor Academy had advertised that students would have assistance in building their businesses, but this part of the program was almost completely nonexistent.
After graduating, I had a great deal of trouble not only starting my own dog training business, but even landing a job as an instructor with an established training facility. Overall, I would never have enrolled in Karen Pryor Academy if I had known that I was not going get any help with my career. I also would not have enrolled if I had known about the backlash I would get from the non-​clicker training community, and how utterly difficult it is to maintain a lucrative career as a dog trainer.