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About the Role

The Dog Behavior Trainer plays a key role in saving the lives of dogs with behavioral challenges and helping them thrive in adoptive homes. This position is responsible for hands-on training, socialization, enrichment, behavior assessment, and behavior modification for a diverse population of dogs, ensuring their mental, emotional, and behavioral well-being. This is a hands-on, mission-driven role focused on results, reliability, and teamwork, requiring collaboration with volunteers.

Responsibilities

Partner with volunteers during every shift and help create an inclusive, welcoming environment.
Work alongside volunteers to complete daily tasks, ensuring the work is shared and collaborative.
Support the recruitment and onboarding process by welcoming new volunteers and helping them get oriented.
Help retain volunteers by offering encouragement, guidance, and feedback during shared work.
Recommend strong volunteers for deeper involvement or specialized roles.
Contribute to a positive culture by recognizing volunteer contributions through appreciation, gratitude, and shoutouts.
Help set volunteers up for success by clearly explaining tasks, providing hands-on guidance, and offering in-the-moment support.
Safely handle and train dogs of all breeds, sizes, and behavior profiles.
Conduct daily playgroups to encourage healthy socialization and reduce kennel stress.
Design and implement enrichment activities to support each dog’s mental and emotional wellbeing.
Develop and execute individualized training and behavior modification plans using science-based, humane methods.
Lead behavior consults, adopter meet-and-greets, and dog-dog introductions to ensure safe and successful placements.
Perform formal behavioral assessments to determine a dog’s temperament, stress level, and placement potential.
Maintain thorough and up-to-date behavior notes in the shelter database.
Collaborate with shelter teams to make informed, behavior-based outcome decisions for dogs.
Support behavioral evaluations of dogs at partner organizations.
Provide training and mentorship to staff and volunteers to build shelter-wide behavioral literacy.
Lead educational workshops or informal learning opportunities focused on dog behavior and communication.
Help cultivate a safety-minded culture through clear protocols and consistent coaching.
Collaborate with medical, adoption, and foster teams to provide holistic care and support for each dog.
Assist veterinary staff with medical appointments, including handling dogs with behavioral sensitivities.
Uphold the highest standards of safety when working with dogs, especially those with behavior challenges.
Proactively identify and communicate behavioral risks and necessary management strategies.
Apply evidence-based interventions that prioritize safety, empathy, and effectiveness.
Achieve mastery of specialization roles within the department.
Maintain cleanliness and organization, ensuring a safe and comfortable environment for both dogs and staff.
Attend and participate in all required training sessions and meetings.
Maintain timely, open and consistent communication with the Director, Manager, Supervisors, and colleagues.
Demonstrate dependability, accountability, time management, use of reasoning, and good judgment skills.
Partner with Volunteer Managers to learn about the volunteer programs and support volunteers interested in your department on an ongoing basis.
React to change productively and perform other related duties as assigned.
Work evenings, weekends, and holidays as needed.
Work in a high-volume, fast-paced, high-stress environment.
Work autonomously when given goals and deadlines.

Requirements

Hands-on experience working with dogs in a professional setting.
Understanding of basic dog training principles and ability to read canine body language and stress signals.
Commitment to working respectfully and productively with staff, volunteers, and members of the public.
Commitment to humane, evidence-based training methods.
Physical ability to handle large, strong, and energetic dogs, including those with behavioral challenges.
Ability to uphold and promote high safety standards in working with dogs of all sizes, breeds, and temperaments.
Commitment to being flexible and adaptable in responding to the evolving needs of the program and organization.
Ability to react to change productively, and maintain a positive and solution-focused approach as challenges arise.
Demonstrate professionalism in all interactions and represent the program positively.
Commitment to APA!’s mission and a strong desire to increase its life-saving capacity.
Embodiment of APA!'s core values of innovation, respect, drive, resourcefulness, and inclusion.
Commitment to APA!'s customer experience expectations.
Formal training certification (CPDT-KA, CBCC-KA, DPFL, etc.).
Hands-on experience with behavior modification.
Previous animal shelter experience.
Proven ability to lead training workshops and mentor staff/volunteers.
Experience conducting full behavioral assessments and determining placement suitability.
Must be able to routinely lift 40-50 pounds.
Must be able to work around animals (including diseased, injured, and/or potentially aggressive animals), loud noises, chlorine or other chemicals, and inclement weather.
Must be able to comfortably interact with cats/dogs of various health levels, including cats who may carry zoonotic diseases such as ringworm, scabies, intestinal parasites, etc.
Must be able to walk big dogs that pull and jump for multiple hours a day.
Must be able to be on your feet for long periods of time.
Must be able to visually observe people and animals from up to 150 feet away.
Ability to hear normal speech at close contact and shouting up to 150 feet away with the ability to hear and discern dog vocalizations both soft and loud.
Must be able to pass all required dog handling training required for this position.
Use own transportation to travel and transport.
Must be able to walk around shelter as needed - uneven ground, keeping a safe distance from dogs and handlers.

Skills

Dog training
Socialization
Enrichment
Behavior assessment
Behavior modification
Canine body language
Stress signal recognition
Humane training methods
Science-based training methods
Volunteer mentorship
Workshop facilitation
Communication
Time management
Reasoning
Judgment
Adaptability
Solution-focused approach
Professionalism
Teamwork

Location

Austin, TX

Work Type

Part-time
Nonexempt

Experience Level

Entry level
Mid level

Education Level

Formal training certification (CPDT-KA, CBCC-KA, DPFL, etc.)

Salary/Compensations

$18/hour
Up to $2/hr stipend within approximately 6 months through successful completion of internal APATec certifications

Benefits

Access to an Employee Assistance Program
Discounted Perks Programs
Fully subsidized Pet Insurance
Time off incentives

About the Company

Austin Pets Alive! (APA!) is one of Austin’s most dynamic and best-loved nonprofits, leading the no-kill movement nationally and considered a national thought leader in animal welfare.
APA! locally rescues, treats, and adopts out 10,000 homeless dogs and cats each year, providing the safety net for Austin’s most at-risk shelter pets.
The organization continues to innovate best practices to save lives and teaches its renowned lifesaving model through American Pets Alive!, APA!’s national division.
In 2020, AmPA! began the Human Animal Support Services (HASS) project, a collaborative movement of more than 10,000 animal welfare professionals working in nearly 1,900 organizations.
HASS is the first-of-its-kind collective of shelters and animal welfare professionals coming together to build community-focused animal services that better meet the needs of people and pets by keeping human-animal families together and keeping pets unnecessarily out of shelters.

Equal Opportunity

Austin Pets Alive! is an equal employment opportunity employer and we value having staff who come from communities that are most impacted by the issues we engage on.
We especially encourage people of color, LGBTQ people, women, transgender and gender non-conforming people, and people with disabilities to apply.
Austin Pets Alive! does not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
Austin Pets Alive! is committed to creating a dynamic work environment that values diversity and inclusion, respect and integrity, community focus, and innovation.
APA! is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in the employment application process. To request an accommodation, please contact Talent Acquisition at job@austinpetsalive.org at least one week in advance of your interview.