Companion Animal Science News

TTU Animal Behavior Clinic

The Texas Tech University Animal Behavior Clinic (TTU-ABC) is a student fellowship-based program that provides students with hands on experience in animal behavior and training and provides the community with access to an affordable animal training clinic.

The objective of the program is to provide additional hands-on experience to students that want to pursue a career in animal behavior and training and create an outreach community service program to serve the local community. The goal is to provide students with the opportunity to apply theories and concepts learned in class to real life scenarios and support Lubbock families to improve their relationship with their pets. 

Eligible students (see flyer below for eligibility requirements) will work under the supervision of a companion animal faculty member and graduate student and will serve as dog trainers to the community. 

People interested in private training or behavior consultation will schedule an appointment with our students via an online platform. Training or behavior consultations will consist of initial behavioral assessments and follow-up meetings to evaluate progress.  Together, the student and the pet owner will develop a feasible and tailored plan to address the behavior in question and the pet owner's expectations. The training techniques used will be positive reinforcement operant conditioning (reward-based training) and counterconditioning and desensitization training (using positive reinforcement to change underlying emotional states). 

The students will provide participants with written instructions and educational resources to further support the implementation of the plan. In addition to private consultations, the program may also involve group training sessions at community parks. 

All private training clinics and in-person consultations sessions will be conducted at the Grantham lab. All services will operate on a ‘pay-as-you-can' model, where participants will give a donation after each consultation.