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Does Brain Training for Dogs Actually Work? An Honest Review

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you purchase through my link, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

You sit down to answer one email. Five minutes later you look up and your dog is gnawing the flooring. Again.

One poster in a dog behavior forum put it this way: “I literally sit down to type something, 5 minutes later look round and he’s gnawing the flooring,” in a Mumsnet thread about a 10-month-old destructive dog. If that sounds familiar, you already know the mix of guilt, exhaustion, and frustration that comes with it.

This review looks at Brain Training for Dogs, an online course by certified trainer Adrienne Farricelli. No hype. No pretending we tested it ourselves. Just what we could verify.

You’ve Tried the Toys, the Walks, the Routine. It’s Still Happening.

If you have already bought the puzzle feeders, added a second walk, and stuck to a strict routine, you are not imagining that it still is not working. Chewing, digging, and stealing items can keep happening even when you are doing “everything right.”

In one Mumsnet thread, a poster described a dog that “destroyed a couch, half-destroyed the cat tree, chewed through all of his own beds, ripped up our bedding,” then asked, “I think I’m doing all the things I’m supposed to do??” according to a separate thread about stopping destructive chewing and stealing.

The emotional cost is real. It is not just torn couch cushions. It is the embarrassment of a house full of holes, the dread of coming home, and the creeping thought that maybe you are the problem. A letter writer to a Slate advice column wrote, “I am losing my mind. And all my stuff,” and later added, “I am so stressed I could cry,” describing a puppy that kept destroying the home despite crate training, a safe room, puzzle toys, a set routine, and positive reinforcement, as recounted in Slate’s Care and Feeding column.

The tools you tried were not wrong. They just were not the whole picture.

And the worst part is, nobody tells you what piece is missing.

Why More Exercise Alone Often Isn’t Enough

Most advice stops at “tire the dog out.” Longer walks, more fetch, a second daily run. That advice is not wrong, but it treats the dog’s brain like an afterthought.

A physically tired dog can still be understimulated mentally. Boredom and lack of problem-solving activity are common drivers of chewing, digging, and attention-seeking mischief in dogs left without enough to think about.

The letter writer in the Slate column had already tried puzzle toys and a routine. It did not fully solve the problem. That is a pattern worth noticing: physical fixes alone often plateau, and the frustration of trying “everything” and still failing is exhausting.

Here’s What Most People Get Wrong About Dog Behavior

Here’s what most people get wrong about destructive or hyperactive dog behavior. They assume it is a training gap, so they add more commands. Or they assume it is an energy gap, so they add more exercise.

What often gets missed is impulse control and mental engagement. A dog that can sit and stay on command may still struggle to manage boredom, frustration, or excitement in daily life.

This reframing matters. It is not about whether your dog is “smart enough” or whether you failed as an owner. It is about whether the dog has structured ways to use its brain. That is the gap a mental-stimulation curriculum is designed to address.

What Brain Training for Dogs Actually Is

Brain Training for Dogs is an online membership course created by Adrienne Farricelli. According to the vendor’s sales page, it is built around structured mental-stimulation and impulse-control exercises rather than a book you hold in your hands.

The vendor’s site describes seven modules organized like school grade levels: Preschool, Elementary School, High School, College, University, Graduation, and Einstein. Per the sales page, the course includes 21 brain games across those modules, seven video-based trick tutorials, an “Obedience 101” section, and a library of more than 100 behavior articles.

Access is delivered through video demonstrations and downloadable materials inside a membership site, per the vendor. There is no physical book shipped to your door.

We want to be direct about the marketing language here. The sales page describes the program as unlocking a dog’s “hidden intelligence.” We are not repeating that framing. What the course structure actually appears to offer, based on the vendor’s own description, is a tiered set of mental-stimulation games and impulse-control drills, not a way to raise a dog’s underlying intelligence.

Who Made It, and Does the Credential Hold Up?

This is where the course has a genuine strength worth naming. Adrienne Farricelli is listed with a CPDT-KA credential (Certified Professional Dog Trainer – Knowledge Assessed). You can look up the listing directly in the CCPDT certified dog trainer directory.

CPDT-KA is a third-party certification, not a title someone can self-award. It requires passing a knowledge exam and logging verified training hours. That does not prove the course itself produces results, but it does mean the person behind it has a checkable professional credential, which is more than many pet-product creators can claim.

This is one of the few facts in this review we could independently confirm, not just take from the sales page.

The Method: Positive Reinforcement, and Why That Matters

According to the vendor, the course relies on positive reinforcement and reward-based methods rather than punishment-based tools like shock collars or forceful corrections.

This lines up with current professional guidance. The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior recommends reward-based training over punishment-based approaches for behavior change in dogs.

There is research behind that recommendation too. A peer-reviewed study comparing training approaches reported that reward-based training had a higher owner-reported success rate than electronic collar training. Critics of electronic collars also argue they raise welfare concerns, which is part of why professional bodies steer owners toward reward-based methods first.

So if the course does follow through on positive-reinforcement methods as described, that is a defensible, evidence-aligned choice of approach. It does not guarantee the course works for your dog. But it means the underlying training philosophy is not the questionable part.

What the Marketing Overstates

Here is the part we think you deserve straight, not softened.

The phrase “hidden intelligence” is marketing language. It is not a diagnosable trait in dogs, and we found no independent research showing this specific course changes a dog’s intelligence.

We also could not locate any independent, third-party trial of this course’s actual outcomes. Everything about “how well it works” traces back to the vendor’s own sales page or to buyer reviews, not to a controlled study of the program itself.

One more honest note. This product has been promoted heavily through affiliate marketing for years. That volume of promotion makes it genuinely hard to find a review that is not trying to sell you something, this one included, since it also carries an affiliate link. We are naming that tension directly rather than pretending it does not exist.

Reader reviews on Goodreads (4.30 out of 5 from 53 ratings) echo this mixed picture. One reviewer described a rescue dog becoming a “problem solver” through the games, per the Goodreads listing for Brain Training for Dogs. But another reviewer on that same page cautioned it is “not a magic wand” for serious behavior problems and said a positive-reinforcement-only approach felt “limiting at times.” These are buyer opinions, not independent evidence.

Important: When a Course Isn’t the Right Answer

This section matters more than any feature list. Some behavior problems are not a training gap. They are a sign your dog needs professional, in-person help.

Severe aggression, panic-level separation anxiety, self-injury, or sudden behavior changes can have medical or psychological roots that a video course cannot address. The ASPCA recommends consulting a veterinary behaviorist for these cases, since treatment sometimes requires medication alongside behavior modification.

If your dog is showing any of these signs, please talk to your veterinarian or a certified veterinary behaviorist before trying any self-guided course. This article is not a substitute for professional veterinary or behavioral advice.

Price, Format, and Refund Policy

Here is what we could verify directly from the vendor’s sales page.

The course is priced at $67 as a one-time payment, not a subscription, though the sales page displays $127 as a reference price. It comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee that the vendor describes as “no questions asked.” The vendor also includes a bonus course, listed at a $67 value on the sales page.

Format-wise, this is entirely digital: an online membership site with instructional videos and downloadable materials. There is no physical book or kit shipped to you.

We could not verify independent, third-party data on refund approval rates or how the guarantee plays out in practice for buyers who request it.

Who It’s For and Who Should Skip It

This may be worth exploring if your dog’s main issues are boredom-driven, like mild chewing, restlessness, or basic obedience gaps, and you want a structured, video-based, reward-based curriculum you can work through at your own pace.

This is not the right fit if your dog shows severe aggression, panic-level anxiety, or sudden behavior changes. Those situations call for a veterinary behaviorist, not a self-guided video course. It is also not a fit if you need a printed book, in-person coaching, or one-on-one troubleshooting, since this is a solo, digital, video-based format.

Our Honest Verdict

We can verify some real strengths here. Adrienne Farricelli is listed in the CCPDT directory with a checkable CPDT-KA credential. The course uses a reward-based method that lines up with current professional guidance from the AVSAB. The price, format, and refund window are clearly stated by the vendor.

What we cannot verify is whether this specific course, as a finished product, produces the behavior changes it implies. We found no independent trial of the program’s actual outcomes. What exists is vendor marketing language and buyer reviews, not controlled evidence.

One real limitation stands out: “hidden intelligence” framing oversells what a structured game curriculum can reasonably claim to do.

Given that gap, we do not think there is enough independent, product-specific evidence to recommend this course as a solution for your dog’s behavior. The credential and method are genuine positives. The outcome evidence is not there yet.

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you purchase through my link, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This article is not a substitute for veterinary or professional behavioral advice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Brain Training for Dogs a scam? No evidence we found suggests it is a scam. It is a real digital course by a credentialed trainer with a stated 60-day refund window. That said, we could not find independent proof of its specific outcomes, so treat outcome claims on the sales page with caution.

Does it work for puppies? The vendor’s module structure, starting at “Preschool,” suggests it is designed to scale from young dogs to more advanced training. We did not find independent, age-specific outcome data to confirm results for puppies specifically.

How long does it take per day? The vendor’s sales page does not specify a required daily time commitment in the material we could verify. We recommend checking the current course details directly before assuming a fixed schedule.

What is the refund policy? The vendor states a 60-day money-back guarantee, described as “no questions asked.” We could not verify independent data on how often refunds are approved in practice.

How does it compare to free YouTube dog training content? Free content can offer useful basics, but it is scattered and not organized into a progressive curriculum. This course offers structure and a credentialed creator, though again, we found no independent proof that structure alone translates into better outcomes than free resources for every dog.