Long day today, full time work then doggie training! Doggie training relieves me of my stress, but not all the time like tonight. What's frustrating as a trainer is to see your clients not getting the basic obedience when you're in the advance class. Ok you might be saying the dogs are in a room with other dogs and new smells, but they should be able to do a sit. Most of the time it's just lack of practice and not taking the time to do the work. Training is fun and it doesn't have to be frustrating.
Let's face it. It's not easy to raise a puppy. You might think you don't have to do much but you really have to be there every step of way. Many things can go wrong and I have experienced the repercussions of it. Once things go wrong, it's even more difficult to reverse the negative effects.
I love seeing people take their dogs to the puppy classes but I hate to see them not doing the work. The one command where I can tell if people have been doing the work with their dogs is the WAIT and STAY commands. It takes a lot of mental energy for a puppy to perform a WAIT and STAY because of distractions. It also takes a lot of baby steps to get a good WAIT or STAY. Often it is just expecting too much from our dogs in too little time.
The most frustrating part of being a trainer is not the dog at all. It's training the owner that thinks he knows more than you. That's frustrating. Or thinks your ways are wrong. Seriously, if you knew more than me in this subject, you wouldn't be in our class in the first place and pay us. And if you do know more than me, you really don't have to be a jerk about it.
Being a trainer has taught me a lot. Most of the time, it's about educating the owners. The techniques are simple, but changing the minds of people is difficult. Correcting people when they are wrong on subtle details is difficult and you really have to know how to deal with various types of people in this field. Despite the frustrations as a trainer it is still fun, fulfilling and rewarding. Don't you think so?
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