I think it’s important to keep in mind what kinds of disagreements most often come up, and which are rarer. There may be some super rare situations that you’ve never heard of coming up that just aren’t addressed by your contract. But it should speak to the things that do tend to come up.

First, I would guess the most common disagreement is folks not wanting to pay because they don’t see whatever improvement they were hoping for in the dog.

I would include a term something along the lines of “No warranties, express or implied: You acknowledge that dog training involves working with animals, and despite our efforts, we cannot provide any warranties or guarantees that your pet’s behavior will change or improve as a result of our services. We accept no liability for your dog’s behavior while under our control or in the future.”

A note on the “implied” warranty thing: It’s not enough to just say nothing about warranties. Some warranties are implied unless you disclaim them. For example, if you have a stand that sells surfboards by a particular beach, you are likely implicitly warranting your surfboards work for that beach. And if there’s a beach across the street that’s way too intense for the material your surfboards are made of, you’ve gotta tell people that or be on the hook if they reasonably assume your boards work for both of the beaches you’ve set up between. 

Lay folks aren’t necessarily familiar with what dog training can and can’t do. The safest thing from a liability perspective – and the right thing in a customer-service business – is to be really clear about that. 

If you do want to provide some kind of guarantee in the contract, I would get advice on that. You could presumably limit your liability to just the agreed price of training, but you’d have to be a little sophisticated about that or – alternatively – just make a judgment call after you’ve done the training if you want to let somebody off the hook.

Second, I would guess another common disagreement is over folks thinking that you agreed in conversation to something different than the contract says, either before or after contracting. You should protect yourself against that using something called a “merger” or “integration” clause. That’s uppity legal speak for a clause that says the contract contains everything you’ve agreed to, regardless of other stuff you’ve said.  

An example would be: “The parties intend this statement of their agreement to constitute the complete, exclusive, and fully integrated statement of their agreement. As such, it is the sole expression of their agreement, and they are not bound by any other agreements of whatever kind or nature, unless made expressly in writing after the date of this agreement.” 

This protects you against someone saying “sure, we had a contract, but she promised me other stuff before or after on the phone.” And the last bit about modification in writing afterward leaves the door open to amendment in writing – I think you do want that. 

For example, the situation we talked about where somebody meant to order an extra service off you but just forgot to tick the box. Get them to send an email asking for it, or send them an email asking them to confirm they want to add that. That’s a writing after the fact and counts, and I think you do want that one thing to count – deals need to be updated sometimes when both parties mean for them to be.

Third, there are other terms to consider. I would include a limitation of liability clause. Here’s an example of one:  

“The Owner agrees, to the fullest extent permitted by law, to limit the liability of [trainer] to the Owner for any and all claims, losses, costs, expenses, or damages of any nature whatsoever, including attorney and expert-witness fees and costs, from any cause or causes, so that the total aggregate liability of the [trainer] to the Owner shall not exceed [the fees set forth in this contract]. It is intended that this limitation apply to any and all liability or causes of action however alleged or arising, unless otherwise specifically prohibited by law.”

Will that always work? No. But it is worth including. The most common circumstance where it doesn’t work is intentional misconduct. You can’t include that clause, let someone’s dog starve to death, and then say that clause means you’re only stuck with the training fees. But it will typically work for run of the mill negligence.

Fourth, I do think it’s important to include a clause reserving the right to administer veterinary care in the event an animal is sick or injured and to pass along those costs to the owner. Obviously, try to get in touch with the owner and ask their preferences, but you need to be able to get an animal emergency care and not be on the hook for the bill thereafter. You don’t want that worry to slow you down and to then have the owner go “what in the world…why weren’t you more proactive”, and more importantly, you just don’t want to be thinking about that with a hurt dog you want to take care of as a person who really cares about dogs.

Fifth, there are the other terms we’ve talked about regarding the veterinarian’s rule, representations about whether the dog has bitten, and the like. You could also indicate that the contract is subject to the terms and conditions page, and any updates, on your website. That’s pretty sophisticated/complicated for a dog training contract, but businesses often do that so that they can keep up to date with changes in law. That would depend on the scale of what you’re doing and if that would be more helpful or confusing for you. You could also consider an arbitration clause – that’s a lot to go into here, but there’s good information online.

Finally, I should note I’m keeping this a little bare bones for small scale dog training businesses. There’s plenty more you would do if you were running a multi-state, multi-location business. You might have a choice of law provision that indicates which state’s law will apply. You might have provisions setting forth how notice will work. And a lot more. You’ll see some of that if you just Google example training contracts.