I'm a Person Trainer

I have a confession to make.  I am a certified training partner from the Karen Pryor Academy.  I read any dog training book I can put my hands on.  I try to attend every seminar related to training that comes through my area.  But, I'm going to put it right on the table...my own dogs aren't perfect.

I absolutely LOVE it when dog trainers put their resume on their websites.  I want to see if they've attended any schools, seminars or if they are certified through certain organizations.  I tend to skim over the lists of titles they have with their dogs though.  Why?  It isn't because I do not respect what they do and what kind of time and dedication goes in to working toward those titles.  I skim because it does not tell me much about what kind of "person" trainer they are.  It just tells me they are a great dog trainer.

I love to teach others the methods of positive dog training, because I love to see the lightbulb go off at both ends of the leash.  When I'm teaching, I make sure the general idea of the steps needed are understood by the owner and then I focus on them.  The beauty of clicker training is that it is okay to make mistakes.  If you click something that you didn't mean to click, the worst thing that will happen is that the dog gets a free reward.  The horror, I know!  This allows me as the "person" trainer to make sure the owner is getting rewarded for their awesome behavior too.  I want to make sure they are relaxed and they know how to hold the clicker and that they are okay with delivering treats a certain way.  I also love to let them know when they have excellent clicker timing.  Why?  Because the more I reward great behavior, the more it will multiply and they will become better dog trainers.  I want to build confidence so that they don't have to always question whether or not they are doing something correctly. When the confidence of the owner goes up, they are more focused on getting behavior and not so much about making it perfect.  And that my friends makes a great equation: happy owner= happy dog.

This is a good quality to have in a trainer.  They may be awesome with dogs, but how are they will their own species?

It all came to light for me when I was in a fairly large class this past weekend.  We were working on some behaviors with our dogs that we would be getting graded on and my anxiety was very high.  It was a new environment for my dog, along with 15 new dogs that she had never met and the test required the behaviors to be fluent enough to not use treat rewards.  I ended up not setting myself or my dog up for success.  I had the idea in the back of my head that I'm a trainer and my dog should be perfect.  After breaking a couple of stays and barking and not being able to focus at all, the lightbulb went off.  What kind of advice would I give to someone in that situation?  How would I be the "person" trainer?  I calmed down and took a breath.  I put my treat bag back on my waist and took my little girl outside for a break.  When we came back in, we made our own little bubble away from the other owners and worked on simple stuff and made sure lots of clicks happened and then regrouped later on and worked on some of the behaviors at our own pace.

The moral of this soapbox post?  When you are looking for a dog trainer, try to meet them without your dog and see if you two click.  Make sure they are good at communicating.  Training an animal can be a pretty stressful situation sometimes and you want to make sure you feel comfortable with the person you are looking to for advice.  They should not only be your dog's biggest cheerleader, but also yours as well.