Joseph Cinnante, a Los Angeles-area dog trainer with more than 25 years in the industry, is building his company around the owners at the top of the pet economy, where the richest fifth of U.S. households spent $1,861 on pets in 2024.

"We are more expensive than most, but the reputation and our results more than justifies that cost," Cinnante said in a statement to The Cranberry Journal. His company, Cinnante Canine, promises clients "Training Done By Real Experts," and it is built for a fast-growing corner of the market: owners who want an expert, and who will pay for one.

His biography says he was born in Mallorca, Spain, became training director of a large protection-dog company at 22, owned and ran a police-dog company in the Czech Republic at 24 and has trained and supplied dogs for military and police K9 units internationally. He founded Advanced Canine Systems in 2013 and started Cinnante Canine in 2023.

The market he is building for is growing fastest at the top. Americans spent $158 billion on their pets in 2025, up 3.7 per cent, the American Pet Products Association said in March. The trade group also found that 22 per cent of owners spent less on their pets last year. The average is soft. The top is not.

Where is the pet money growing?

In services, and among richer households. APPA's category data, as reported by GlobalPETS, show "other services," which include grooming and insurance, rose 8 per cent to $14.3 billion in 2025. That is about 9 per cent of the total, by this publication's arithmetic, but it grew more than twice as fast as the industry as a whole, and faster than food and treats ($68.3 billion, up 3 per cent), veterinary care ($41.0 billion, up 3 per cent) or supplies, medications and live animals ($34.4 billion, up 4.4 per cent).

The income split is sharper. The highest-earning fifth of U.S. households spent $1,861 on pets in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Expenditure Surveys. That was up 18 per cent from $1,571 a year earlier and 77 per cent from 2020, by this publication's arithmetic. The lowest fifth spent $368, and the middle fifth $673. Numerator, a consumer-data company, found that high-income households doubled their pet spending between 2020 and 2025 to about $40 billion, or 38 per cent of the total, Supermarket News reported in September.

A survey average cannot show the very top of the market. Prices can. Bark Air, a charter service that flies dogs in the cabin, charges about $6,000 to $12,000 one way and has added a concierge service that sends chaperones on family holidays, Fortune reported last year. At that level, owners are buying staff time, not products.

What does Cinnante Canine sell, and to whom?

Expert time, priced by who supplies it. Its flagship is a board-and-train retreat: $20,000 to train with Cinnante himself and $16,000 with his team, according to the retreat page. The website also lists an initial evaluation lesson at $250, an in-home evaluation at $550 depending on distance from its ranch, and private lessons at $350 at its facility or $650 at the client's home. Group lessons are held throughout the Los Angeles area, its training page says.

For some clients, the relationship goes well beyond a single program. "We currently serve a number of very high net worth clients for who we handle everything dog related for," Cinnante said. "This is what we want the future to consist of."

Many of those owners arrive having already paid for training elsewhere. "Every day, dog owners invest thousands into training programs that fail to deliver," he said. "You shouldn't have to wait for training to fail before finding the right team."

How does a trainer earn a premium price?

By putting a proven expert's name on the work, and keeping the numbers small. The $4,000 gap between the two retreat tiers is a 25 per cent premium for the founder's own hours, by this publication's arithmetic, and the retreat page says the company trains "only a select number of dogs at a time." A named expert and scarce places are the classic foundations of pricing power in personal services, and Cinnante has both.

The other foundation is trust in who does the work, and here the company has built its model around the answer. Dog training is lightly regulated: the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook says certification for animal trainers is available but "not required." The median animal trainer earned $39,990 in May 2025, and about 47,800 people held the job. In a field that open, an owner paying for the best has good reason to ask who will actually handle the dog.

Cinnante's answer is unambiguous. "At Cinnante Canine, your dog's training is never outsourced. Every dog is trained in-house by our team of experts," he said. "No third-party trainers. No handing your dog off to someone you've never met." The retreat page describes "our team of highly skilled trainers, led by Joseph." Employing every trainer means carrying payroll in slow months, where subcontracting would keep costs variable. In exchange, the company can tell a wealthy client exactly who is caring for the dog.

Where is the premium market heading?

Upward, on the industry's own forecast. APPA projects U.S. pet spending of $165 billion in 2026, and the fastest growth is in services, the category Cinnante Canine sells. High-income households already account for nearly two-fifths of the total, on Numerator's figures, and their spending has risen fastest.

The company's plan is to grow with them. "Basically what we want to move towards is high end / high level care for affluent clients and their dogs," Cinnante said. He wants the company to be, in his words, "the only option for people to trust with their dogs training." A team tier that trains the founder's way is what lets one trainer's reputation reach more dogs than his own calendar could take. The test is whether the clients paying for the founder keep paying when the team does the work.

Sources

Industry totals, the 2026 projection, dog-ownership figures and the share of owners spending less come from the American Pet Products Association's release of 26 March 2026; the category breakdown, including the $14.3 billion services figure and its 8 per cent growth, is APPA data as reported by GlobalPETS on 23 April 2026. Spending by income quintile is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Expenditure Surveys via FRED. The Numerator figures on high-income households are as reported by Supermarket News on 2 September 2026. Bark Air prices are as reported by Fortune on 24 September 2025. Trainer pay, employment and certification are from the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. Cinnante Canine's prices and program descriptions are from its website as read on 22 October 2026; quotations from Cinnante about clients, pricing, strategy and the in-house model are from a statement he sent to The Cranberry Journal in October 2026. Ratios and percentage changes are this publication's arithmetic. The analysis is our own.

Topics businessconsumer spendingsmall business

Editor-at-Large

Margaret Holloway

Margaret Holloway writes about leadership, institutions and the culture of American work. She has covered executives and the organizations they run for more than fifteen years.

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