There is a “business model”, for lack of a better term, that quite a few board and train programs use. You could probably find one in every major city in the world. What they are doing would be described as “existential food training.”
Here is how it goes. The contract you sign will say that you will not be able to contact the trainer more than once a week, sometimes only once a month or even less. You can’t have your dog back until the training is finished. You can’t visit your dog or witness any of the training. You won’t be told what is going to happen. After you hand off your dog, your dog will be starved. Your dog will be made to work for every scrap of food and kept in a state of starvation. You will find that you will get harsh responses back from the trainer if you attempt to find out what is going on. Sometimes the training goes longer than the original agreed upon term of the contract. That is because the dog is teetering on life and death. Sometimes these trainers will take the dog out of state so you can’t track them down.
This isn’t just confined to one area of the country; it is all over the place. I had a call from a lady a few years ago. Somewhere on the East Coast. Same thing going on and she was wondering if this was normal. Weeks went by. If I recall, she got one photo, and the dog didn’t look well. The trainer’s responses became fewer and fewer and angrier and angrier. She eventually couldn’t get any feedback, but she found out the trainer had taken the dog to another state. I never learned the result, but I told her that I thought this was what was going on. It isn’t normal for a trainer to hide what they are doing like this or to treat customers like this.
I heard of a similar situation, but without the training. The dogs taken in for boarding were not fed. The “rescue organization” used the funds to buy drugs. In another case, dead dogs “ran away”, meaning the so-called boarding place found somewhere to dispose of the dead dogs.
I know of an athlete that tried a long fast. The coach advised against it. It broke down that person’s body and it took months to recover. Humans can get serious behavioral disorders as a result of starvation. Look into what happened during the work leading up to the end of WW2, and what happened to the volunteers who agreed to be starved to prepare our troups for saving those in Nazi concentration camps. Look at the eating disorders in bodybuilding, too.
Starvation isn’t dog training. It is abuse.
Starvation isn’t a proper way of motivating dogs.
I would NEVER sign over my dog to a place like that.
Let the buyer beware. Is this what you want for your dog?
Plan accordingly.