When starting a dog business—whether you intend to be a dog walker, pet sitter, home dog boarder, dog groomer, or any other kind of small dog business—learning canine welfare is an important step in your foundational education. Aside from regulations in place for professionals caring for dogs, it is beneficial to your business for you to be as informed as you can about dogs. After all, they will be your clients!

Meeting Legal Requirements

Dog Business School’s Canine Care, Behaviour, & Welfare course is regulated and recognised by the Government’s Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (OFQUAL). It meets the requirements of the Department for Environmental Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018.

As of 2018, DEFRA requires the license holder or a designated manager of home boarding, dog day care and commercial boarding establishments to have competence identifying the normal behaviour of the species for which they are caring and to be able to recognise signs of (and be able to mitigate or prevent) pain, suffering, injury, disease, or abnormal behaviour.

Our OFQUAL Level 3 Canine Care, Behaviour, & Welfare Award course is designed to meet the “higher standard” for DEFRA. When you have completed this course, you will not only meet but exceed your DEFRA requirements, setting you apart from the pack and engendering a greater trust between your prospective clients and yourself

Is this course right for me?

If you work with dogs, the short answer is: YES! This Ofqual Level 3 qualification is perfect for anyone who works with dogs or is looking to start a dog business, particularly:

• Dog boarders
• Dog day carers
• Dog breeders
• Dog walkers
• Dog trainers/behaviourists
• Dog groomers
• Pet sitters

Whether you are an established business looking to meet requirements or a brand-new start-up in your chosen field, the course is for you. No prior knowledge or qualifications are required, though of course any experience you do have will likely be advantageous.

What to Expect from the Course

This course is centred around canine welfare. Covering essential information on canine care, behaviour, and welfare, this self-contained course provides you with the necessary knowledge to bring your dream of running a dog business to life. More than that, you will have the upper hand on some of your competitors who have no formal qualifications or who are yet to step up from their Level 2 Ofqual qualification because you will leave the course with an Ofqual Level 3 Award certificate in Canine Care, Behaviour, and Welfare from Ofqual’s national awarding organisation Open Course Network West Midlands.

This course is completely online, so as long as you have a decent Internet connection, you’re all set. You will typically take between two and six months to complete the course. You will use online video seminars and interactive content for a lot of the course, but you also have access to an online tutor, and recorded seminars, flashcards, quizzes, podcasts, and more. Throughout the course, you will be assessed with both short question answer assessments and multiple choice.

A lot of courses we have seen in the past simply chuck a PDF workbook at you and call it a day. We are more comprehensive and want to make sure you get the most out of your course. After all, courses like this set the foundation for your education in your chosen field.

What will I learn?

Your course in Canine Care, Behaviour, and Welfare will be split into two comprehensive units. Here is a quick overview as to what you will learn in each unit.

Unit 1 – Canine Behaviour

• Common canine body language signs and signals
• Terms describing a range of canine emotional states
• How to assess canine body language
• Common canine behavioural issues and methods used to modify them
• How to work with common canine behavioural problems
• Potential causes and signs of canine stress or aggression
• The ladder of aggression in canines (how stress can lead to aggression)

Unit 2 – Care of Canines in Kennels, Day Care & Home Boarding

• The causes of canine diseases, disease transmission, & disease prevention
• Risk assessments for the prevention of disease transmission in canines
• The welfare of canines and potential welfare issues in home boarding and day care settings
• Feeding requirements for canines in home boarding and day care settings
• Common eating and dietary issues in canines and how to deal with these in home boarding and day care settings
• Different ways to enter and exit dog enclosures (and potential problems you may encounter)
• Essential personal protection equipment for canine handling
• Ways to provide environmental enrichment in home boarding and day care settings and why this is important
• Safe and unsafe play in canines
• Safe management of canine interactions

If you still aren’t sure if this course is right for you, or if you are concerned about any additional learning support you might need, contact us. We are happy to discuss the benefits of this course with you so that you can decide if this is the next step for you.