Many students complete the course in five months. But you can do it as quickly or slowly as you want. That's one advantage of distance learning.

You will have permanent access to the course. Tutoring is available for two years, and after that, you can pay a fee to extend it for a further year.

Yes. You can make five monthly payments. There is no extra charge. You can find the cost of paying by instalments by clicking 'Fees and Registration', and then 'Pay Monthly'.

Yes. Just let us know within 60 days of receiving it, and return it in good condition (if you have the printed edition) , and we'll send you a full refund.

There are two types of people you can contact - your tutor and a course advisor.

The tutor marks your work, and helps you with any problems. You can e-mail your assignments to your tutor whenever you want.

We don't give out the tutor's phone number, because a few people would spend all day talking to their tutors, who would never get any work done.

But sometimes students get stuck, or have an urgent query. If so, you can phone a course advisor at the Blackford Centre at any time during work hours. If you leave a message out of work hours, we'll ring you back the next working day.

You can contact your course advisor as often as you want, and about anything to do with your chosen profession.

Yes, we encourage submitting work this way!

Yes, you can.

We advise working through the course in order, but this is not a requirement. 

So, if you want to tackle a particular topic, you can go straight to that module. This is useful if you have a job or a client that requires you to know about a particular subject. You might note that some other organisations supply only one or two modules at a time.

We send you the whole course when you enrol. This means you can study any topic you want to. You can also see what topics are coming up. Getting everything in one package makes it easier for you to get an overview of the course. As we mentioned above, some other organisations supply only one or two modules at a time.

We think this is the best course in the world. Bar none. But please examine other courses before making a decision. Consider these points:

1. Is the course comprehensive?

2. Will your studies be supported by a tutor?Research shows that people succeed much better on courses that include a personal tutor.

3. Is it interactive? That is, do the course materials regularly make you stop and think, and do exercises? Too many courses consist of page after page of boring lecture notes.

4. Does it teach you about setting up your own business? College courses are often weak on this point.

5. Is it accredited?

6. Can you get a refund if you don't like the course?

For our course, the answer to all these questions is 'Yes'. But check out other courses as well before enrolling. We want to you make the choice that's right for you.

Yes. Our course has been endorsed under the Quality Licence Scheme.

This means we have undergone an external quality check to ensure that our organisation and the courses we offer meet certain quality criteria. Endorsement involves a robust and rigorous quality audit by external inspectors to ensure quality is consistently met. A regular review of courses is carried out as part of the endorsement process.

To this end, the learning outcomes of the course have been benchmarked at QLS Level 4 Award against level descriptors published by Ofqual, to indicate the depth of study and level of difficulty involved in successful completion by the learner.

When you successfully complete this course you will receive a Certificate of Achievement and a Learner Unit Summary(which lists the details of all the units you have completed as part of your course).

Read more about course endorsement here

Yes, the course includes practical guidance on finding clients for your own private practice. You can also get additional help from your tutor or a course advisor.

It is fair to say that the course we offer is more theory based due to its distance learning based nature, and therefore the students that have the most success completing our course tend to:

- Have had experience grooming their own dogs

- Have access through work/a friend/a family member to some practical guidance

- Be completing work experience while studying, or have completed work experience prior to study.

However we do not require you to have this background to study. We are delighted to welcome anyone on to the course with a passion for the subject matter, and a drive to succeed!

We do cover practical indirectly within the course. We achieve this by using case study based assignments, to help you apply your knowledge to a realistic setting. We also use video content as a visual aid, and provide a practising dog Groomer as a tutor, to help with any practical based questions, and support you throughout your studies.

It is important for every student to pick a course that is right for them, and we encourage that you consider a range of courses and training options, to find something well suited to you.

We love our course, and think it’s a great choice for many, but can appreciate it cannot be right for everyone. For some students, distance learning is perfect, while others might prefer a classroom setting, or need more practical support.

Take some time to consider what support you need, and how you learn best, to help ensure you pick a course suited to your needs, that will help you achieve your goal. 

No. In most locations there is no official pet grooming certification procedure. You do not need any government recognised qualification.

But it is important to be able to demonstrate to potential clients that you have undergone formal training and gained a qualification. The certification provided by the Blackford Centre, which has been training people worldwide for over 20 years, will instil confidence in you and your clients.

We always recommend students wanting to work outside of the UK seek legal advice in this location to be sure of whether any rules are in place, as this can vary from location to location.

Yes. Please talk to us about how we can accommodate you. We're able to make suitable accommodations.

You don’t need any specific qualifications or experience. You just need the motivation to succeed.

• Don't worry. We understand. But this course is nothing like your memories of being stuck inside a stuffy classroom on a summer's day with an old-fashioned teacher droning on.
• For a start, this is a subject that interests you (or you wouldn't have got this far).
• And getting this deep into the website shows that you can absorb information and concentrate for long periods of time.
• Also, you'll see that we write clearly and simply. And that's how we've written the course materials. It's true that some organisations write long and boring pages that make your eyes glaze over. We promise you that our course is nothing like that. You'll find this course is informative and enjoyable. In fact, many students are almost upset at finishing the course.

When you start comparing us with other course providers you might notice that:

• Some organisations will only give you 7 days to return your course if it’s not right for you. If our course is not what you expected and you want a full refund we allow you 60 days to return it and claim your money back.
• Some organisations will charge you an administration fee to return the course. We refund all of your fees.
• Many of our courses include details on business, marketing and finance, or finding a job (as applicable). This is something other courses tend to miss out. 

Here are some answers we hope will reassure you.

We've been in operation since 1995; so we're very established.

We publish our physical address at the bottom of each page - and you are welcome to visit us.

We’re audited yearly by The Quality Licence Scheme. The Quality Licence Scheme is part of the Skills and Education Group, who are a national awarding organisation. (You can phone them to verify that).

You can read the Reviews of our students on the web site.

We publish an Ethical statement here

We're registered at Companies House: registration number 352 4886

Our VAT number is 729 1528 23

Our bank is NatWest, 7 High Street, Wells, Somerset (we have money in the bank and no loans or overdraft).

We're registered with the UK government's Register of Learning Providers (www.ukrlp.co.uk); Number 10009490.

And finally, we love what we do; and we wouldn't do anything to jeopardise it.