Unleashing Your Dog’s Genius: Brain Training For Dogs Review

If you have a new puppy, or even an older dog, a good training guide is essential to ensure you end up with the four legged friend of your dreams.

Adrienne Farricelli’s unique brain training course is the relatively new pup on the block – but is it any good?

We’re going to fully review Brain Training For Dogs from the inside out to help you decide if it’s for you (and your furry friend!)

Looking for the Official Website? Click Here!

What Is Brain Training For Dogs?

Brain Training For Dogs is an online, members only, dog training resource put together by professional trainer Adrienne Fafficelli. There is a one time fee to gain access, with no recurring charges.

While the Brain Training section is certainly the most unique part of this course, it’s not all that’s included. This a complete dog training guide that will show you how to do everything from basic puppy training to solving unwanted behavior.

What’s Included?

There’s a lot here, but it can be roughly divided into four areas:

• Brain Training For Dogs: the main course, split over five modules. It will first guide you through all the basic training techniques and show you how to take them to the next level. Once your dog has mastered the basics, he’ll be ready for the Brain Training module itself.
• Behavior Training For Dogs: a bonus course that focuses on the most common unwanted behaviors.
• Addriene’s Archive: a huge collection of dog training guides and articles.
• Member’s Forum: a very active private forum.

We’re going to take a closer look at all these areas, but first let’s give you a feel for what it is.

What Sets It Apart From Other Dog Training Guides?

The fresh way this program aims to solve behavior problems is what makes it such a unique dog training course.

Adrienne Farricelli has created a dog training system that fixes the root cause of unwanted behaviour.

As you progress through the training with your pooch, any bad behavior you are experiencing should simply disappear, and for those that don’t there are step by step guides that address just about every kind of problem behaviour you could imagine (plus lots you couldn’t!).

Of course, if you start the training with a new puppy you’ll never suffer behavior problems in the first place.

The ‘Secret’ To How It Works

The basic concept is that mental stimulation is vital to your dog’s well-being, so if you develop your dog’s brainpower:

• You’ll keep his mind active: an active mind leads to a healthy, active dog
• He won’t be bored: boredom can cause your dog to be unhappy, destructive, and start misbehaving
• You’ll develop a strong bond and connection with your dog: he will trust you and listen to you
• You can show off your genius dog to the neighbours!

The program is structured so that you and your dog will start at the very beginning with basic training, and only advance to the next stage once he’s ready. It’s a very impressive and well thought out system.

We’ll go into more detail when we take a closer look at the main course.

Training Techniques Used

One thing I really love about this course, that not many other dog training programs can claim, is it relies on force free training only:

You are NEVER told to use any force or dominance techniques, which can cause distress to your dog. I looked hard: there’s nothing.

Everything is done with positive reinforcement.

I don’t know about you, but this is hugely important for me.

About Adrienne Farricelli

Adrienne Farricelli is a professional CPDT-KA® certified dog trainer and behavior consultant who has been featured in USA Today and Every Dog magazine.

She uses scientifically based, force-free, positive reinforcement training methods and stays up to date with the newest trends in the dog training world.

Adrienne has been working with dogs professionally since 2006, and in 2010 she became certified by by the Italian Association for Dog Trainers and Canine Consultants, following more than 200 hours of apprenticeship under a master dog trainer.

She then began teaching basic and advanced obedience classes in Missouri and gained her certification from the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers in the United States.

Adrienne runs a successful cage-less board and train company, and has trained service dogs for military veterans.

She has two pet dogs of her own: Rottweilers Petra and Einstein (you’ll see a lot of them as they demonstrate the games and tasks for you in the trick training videos!)

What Is It Like Inside The Member’s Area?

It is an online course, which is great because you get instant access as soon as you buy it.

You’ll first be greeted with a Welcome Page, which runs through where to find everything and lets you know about a couple of small secret bonuses that are included – I won’t spoil the surprise for you, but they’re pretty cool.

After the Welcome Page, you’ll land in the Member’s Area. As you start to look around, you’ll probably notice the site isn’t very flashy. I believe that is by design.

Much like us at successfulpets.com, Adrienne knows you’re there for her content and keeps distractions to a minimum.

Keeping it simple means all the pages display super fast, so you’re never sitting waiting for the site to load, no matter what device you’re using (and yes, I checked if it was mobile friendly too: it is).

How Easy Is It To Use?

When you first begin exploring, you’ll realise how much content there actually is and it’s easy to become a little overwhelmed with everything on offer and not know where to begin.

A Small Thing They Could Improve…

It took me a while before I learned my way around and, in my opinion, this is something they could make a little easier for new members. Once you’ve figured out where everything is though it’s quick and simple to get to where you want to be.

• To help you get orientated initially, we’ve put together a short Getting Started Guide for you that explains how everything is organized and where you should begin.

Come back and take a look if you feel a little lost once you’re a member. Trust me: it does makes sense once you know how it’s structured.

Now let’s have a closer look at the main areas.

Brain Training For Dogs (Main Course)

Brain Training For Dogs is the name of the main course, which is split into five modules. A little confusingly, Brain Training is also the name of one of these modules.

Let’s have a closer look at them:

Module 1: Getting Started

This gives you a little orientation on the course and tells you what items you’ll need (don’t worry, apart from a dog, there is nothing expensive you’ll have to get: you can even use household items for the most part).

There is also a section on clicker training: don’t skip this!

Module 2: Obedience Training 101

This is basic dog training: make sure your pooch has mastered all of these before moving on:

• Using the Lure
• Sit
• Lie Down
• Take/Leave It
• Drop It
• Stay
• Recall
• Heeling & Attention Heeling

Module 3: Polishing Up Training

This takes your training to the next level, reducing the need for constant treats:

• Fading Food Lures
• Simplifying Hand Signals
• Adding Verbal Cues
• Hand Signals vs. Verbal Cues
• Fading Continuous Rewards

Module 4: Brain Training

This is the really unique part of this course, and from where it takes its name.

The Brain Training Module is a series of 21 fun games/tasks/activities to teach your dog.

They are divided into 7 levels, with each level more challenging than the last. At the end of each task there is a graded challenge, based on the time it takes your four-legged friend to complete it:

Time Taken	Grade Achieved
Under 8 Seconds	A
8 – 12 Seconds	B
13 – 17 Seconds	C
18 – 22 Seconds	D
23 – 27 Seconds	E
Over 27 Seconds	F

In order to progress to the next level, your dog needs to achieve a ‘Passing Grade’:

Level	Difficulty	Passing Grade (Minimum)
Preschool	Very Easy	3 C’s
Elementary	Easy	2 C’s + 1 B
High School	Intermediate	1 C + 2 B’s
College	Difficult	3 B’s
University	Very Difficult	2 B’s + 1 A
Graduation	Expert	1 B + 2 A’s
Einstein	Genius	3 A’s

Each exercise is designed to stimulate your dog’s brain in a certain way.

I won’t list all the games and what benefits each one brings here, but you can find a breakdown of each one on the Brain Training For Dogs Official Website, about halfway down the page.

There are easy to follow training instructions for each of the exercises, including troubleshooting tips, and a demonstration video to show you exactly what you need to do.

Module 5: Closing Words

Once your dog makes it through all the Brain Training activities he will be a certified genius and ready to take Einstein’s Challenge – pitting him against one of Adrienne’s dogs – which can be found in this module.

There are also 9 more trick training videos (it says 7, but there’s actually 9: I guess she added some).

Behaviour Training For Dogs (Bonus Course)

This is where you’ll want to head to if your furry bundle of joy is doing any of the following:

• Whining
• Digging
• Barking
• Chewing
• Jumping

This is just the tip of the iceberg though, there are many other specific problems addressed in other areas of the site (see below), with a handy drop down menu on the Members Home Page linking to the most common.

Note that you’ll probably find most of these behaviors will simply vanish as you work your way through the main course too.

Adrienne’s Archives

A huge collection of over 100 training guides and articles written by Adrienne. Don’t underestimate how good this is!

I literally lost hours in this section, and it would be worth the price of entry on its own. Some sections could be complete guides on their own. For example:

Puppy Training

Taking you through everything you should know when you welcome a new puppy into your home: you’ll want to get to Potty Training right away!

• Potty Training
• Socializing
• Bite Inhibition
• Life Stages (definitely read this if your puppy is under 15 months old)

Behavior Problems

Solutions for some other common unwanted behaviors not covered in the Behavior Training For Dogs course, including:

• Aggression
• Inappropriate Elimination (peeing where/when he shouldn’t)
• Psychological Issues (separation anxiety, jealousy, etc.)

Inside the archive there are guides for virtually any behavior problem – far too many to list here.

Private Forum

For anything not working for you, or if your dog is displaying a certain unwanted behavior that isn’t covered, you can post it here.

These forums are very active, with thousands of posts, and you’ll almost certainly get a quick response from fellow dog owners.

As to whether Addriene will get back to you herself, on the Member’s Home page there is this notice:

Since Adrienne is so busy providing support for this course and assisting doggies in need of help, she cannot guarantee a response to questions directed at her.

However, while she may not guarantee it, she certainly does seem to respond frequently – and with complete answers too:

I looked in all of the latest posts in the “Dog Training & Behavior” area of the forum (24 in total, the entire first page) and she had responded in every single one of them with a detailed answer. Impressive!

Final Thoughts

I absolutely love this dog training resource. Why? Because it includes everything you’ll need to have a happy, obedient, dream dog (that you can show off).

Positives:

• Only force-free techniques are used.
• You will have a strong bond with your perfectly behaved pooch.
• All of the training instructions are clear, concise, and easy to follow.
• The amount of information gathered together here is staggering: this review only touched on the highlights.

Negatives:

• Finding your way around can be a little confusing at first (but we’ve got you covered: see our Getting Started Guide)

No matter if this is your first puppy or you’ve had many dogs before, you will find value here.

Disclosure

It’s only fair to tell you that we are now an affiliate of Brain Training For Dogs. This means that if you follow one of the links on this page and buy the course, we will receive a commission at no extra cost to you (plus we’ll send good vibes your way).

With that being said, we will only ever recommend products we truly believe in because the integrity of this site is very important to us.

We bought and paid for it, thoroughly checked it out, and then decided that Brain Training For Dogs is our pick of the litter (sorry, couldn’t resist!) and a product that we can proudly recommend.

Besides, because they offer a 60 day money-back guarantee, if you don’t like it you can get a full refund – no questions asked.

Where Can I Get Brain Training For Dogs?

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Feature image by Sam Lion