By Steve Appelbaum, ABC President & CEO

Hello! I hope you are healthy and happy as we head into the holiday season. Here is what is going on at ABC.

Programs

Our new program development continues. For example, we are making excellent progress on our service dog training program and still plan on a late-2022 launch. In addition, our international research is coming along. To date, we have screened more than 100 countries in our quest to find our next market. This is an exciting project, and we should know where we will be expanding relatively soon.

Canada

Our Canadian website is now live, as is our ability to have our Canadian students pay for their courses in CAD. Enrollments are already up as a result. I look forward to more improvements in our outreach to prospective students in Canada for the remaining months of this year and next.

Department Updates

We have big plans to improve many of the operating systems in which our departments operate. Some of these will be technical; the results of which will allow our staff to spend less time on data entry and more time working with students. Over the last 3 years, we have made incredible changes and improvements to numerous departments within our school. These changes have allowed the school to remain operational during Covid, streamlined our admissions department, and enhanced our finance department. The challenge with a company, the size of ABC, is that while we often want to make changes right away, they have to be done in stages and in a fashion that allows us to measure results. This takes longer, but the result is advantageous, in my opinion.

Next year will be all about helping the PMs and ECs to work with our students more efficiently. We are very excited about this.

Current Programs

Year to date, ABC’s most popular program is our veterinary assistant program. This is followed by our Dog Obedience Trainer and Pet Grooming programs; the Zookeeper Assistant program is fourth, which is impressive considering we have launched it just 12 months. The Aquarium Maintenance and Cat Training programs are also growing. Some staffers predict that Zookeeping will surpass Grooming, and while that is possible, I think it could be a few years before that happens. Our Short Term Programs are also extremely popular. Here is a list of our current offerings, which are available through the Alumni Center, ABC’s website or by contacting an admissions counselor.

Training Shelter Dogs
The Art of Selling and Teaching Private Lessons
Pet Sitting and Dog Walking
Pet Nutrition and Diet
Pet Massage
Pet Fostering
Doggie Daycare

Classroom

Many of you might not know this, but we offer two classroom programs per year. The course is taught at our Southern California facility and runs for 5 months with students attending five days a week. This program is excellent for those looking for an immersive dog training experience. Approved by the Veterans Administration, the classroom program typically comprises 80 percent of military veterans looking to transition back into civilian life.

We just started our first class in October, which will run until late March 2022. A new class will begin in April 2022. For more information about this program, go to https://www.animalbehaviorcollege.com/gi-bill-dog-trainers/

That’s all for now, and thanks for reading!