Nino Drowaert and companions
JOHNSTON CITY, Ill. - K-9 Companion in Johnston City recently welcomed Nino Drowaert, a puppy trainer all the way from Belgium for a two-day training session.
Nino has been training puppies for 13 years. He says in our interview he never had a dog before and was actually afraid of them and so was his mother; although he was obsessed with them, he never had one. He is a former police officer and wanted to join the K-9 unit so he had to buy a puppy. The things he saw in training videos wasn’t the way he felt it should be done. He wanted to have a positive approach, taking the potential out of the dog without hurting the dog and being in sync with the dog without hurting the dog’s spirit.
Drowaert in a training session
He’s says he made many mistakes with the first one, and bought another and nailed it in ten months. He made his first video and, not thinking it was that good, it was shared over 50,000 times.
K9 Companions, Johnston City
All of his dogs have been the famous Belgian Malinois. They are his favorite “because of the wildness they have about them.
“There is no magic trick to training,” Drowaert said; “it’s all in the handling and hard work that goes into it.”
Several different courses are made available by Drowaert; only these two were offered here at this time. One could attend one or both days of the training. On Saturday, July 14, it was for handlers and their young/working dogs using theory, video and hands on in obedience.
Correspondent Becky and golden retriever
Day 2 on Sunday was E-Collar University, which teaches the proper methods to application and mechanical backup.
Drowaert and his assistant Cathy Smith travel all over the U.S., with people traveling hundreds of miles to attend. There were a couple of guys from Indiana and even one from West Virginia present at the Sunday session.
Any dog can be trained using his teaching techniques.