Here It Goes

Best of luck to you.
Oh, and put your location in your profile. It will help with the answers you're looking for.

 

Overall you are wishful thinking.

Few training companies are pet friendly.

Company CDL training is the worst value for your money. And it will most likely be your money in the end.

Most companies will have around 6 weeks of mentorship. Most often that will extend into 8 weeks when you two will be apart.

Good miles and training company do not go together.

Home for 2-3 days a month may be possible.

I think a 6-9month contract for CDL training is unheard of. Financially impossible for companies.

Forced Dispatch is sort of a Myth. All training companies operate on the same theory, when you get a load they expect you to hustle and take it. Wether you wan't to call it forced or not, they can only hold you to what can be legal done. Then legal or not, they will hold out on you, starve you out, if you don't.

 

Two things.

There will be forced dispatch. YOU WILL go where that truck needs to go. Horse, Saddle and you LAST. If you are good and behave, they probably will offer you three choices with the information for each so you can reason and choose what you like. It's not something to make a habit of.

Other thing.

You two apparently want to be a husband wife team. All I can tell you is this. At some point when you two are a full team running well around the USA, you cannot now imagine just how valuable you two will be to the industry. They will pay both of you THOUSANDS to get both of you into the same truck. And if both of you progress say 5 years or more and both become TRAINERS? ooo your income combined will probably exceed 250K a year salary.

I say it's worth it. What you don't yet know will hurt you more than the schools will.

 

In most states you can get a CDL without going to any formal training, just by taking the written and driving tests. While that is totally feasible and I would totally recommend , it is getting harder and harder to be hired without the formal training.

Community colleges are a better route often for less money. Instruction is usually bad all routes, however community colleges offer significantly more time in training and most importantly backing. They also have no financial for screwing a driver/student over. The training companies do.

It is possible to get outside funding for community colleges and most training companies will reimburse out of pocket expenses for community colleges.

Most all training companies will hire right out of schooling: almost any schooling that meets the 160hour training standard. Many will reimburse on the same schedule as they would for their own training. If lucky, some non-traditional training companies will hire right out school.

Lots! But most recognized standard was set up by the FMSCA through lobbying through the PTDI a branch of the ATA. You probably don't know what that means, but it was a standard lobbied by the industry owned by the training trucking companies. Crazy thing, most of the training trucking companies don't meet that standard although they claim they do.

Meaning?

Lots of misinformation goes around this industry; people have financial motives. Others are just not to bright and believe what they are told by the same people that have financial motives.

 

If you already have company you want to work for and need CDL you can call and ask what one they hire from, if you want to pay it yourself. You can also go the free training but you basically work for cheaper pay per mile but you have a job when done with training.

If you going run team most companies keep the team truck running about 22-23 hours a days basically 1,000 mile a day or 1,200. You get paid for miles split between two drivers. You could do 5,500 miles a week maybe 6,000 miles. It not easy sleeping in a moving truck plus two pets. Plus taking showers and washing clothes and eating and stuff 5,000 miles is rolling for new team.

 

Jody then left that seat up again

 

That (fill-in-the-blank) !

 

Doesn't matter if a cdl school is nationally recognized or not; if it's 160 hours or more, dozens of trucking companies will hire you.
You can't take pets during your training period, because a trainer won't allow it. This only way around this is for one of you to start first while the other one stays home and cares for the pets. After the training period is complete, the other one of you can start and be trained by your better half.
Very few companies allow two pets, so most drivers only say they
have one pet.
Prime Inc. may not care if you have two pets and you can team there. They have their own cdl school in Salt Lake City,Utah.