Some of you may find this title strange. I have been in the dog world and training dogs for over 30 years. I have put titles on my dogs in agility, obedience, flyball, disc and conformation. I was a member of the Superdogs team for 11 years. So what is this about "becoming" a dog trainer. Am I not already there? I must say that until today I certainly thought so. So what changed?
Officially it all started last Saturday when I signed on to become a dog trainer with Positive Changes Dog Training in Ottawa Ontario. We did the paperwork and I signed an employment agreement and we discussed a few details on how the company operates. All done in the comfort of one of the Kanata Starbucks.
Today this venture started in ernest. Today was spent at the training centre (currently the home of the company owner) working a couple of the board and train dogs. And what I learned today is that raising a dog from puppyhood and moulding it and shaping it and doing work with it every day is entirely different from training an adult dog that has no knowledge of training or learning.
I was working with a totally unfocused, unmotivated hound mix (I'll call him Snoopy to protect his identity) who was more interested in everything else in the yard and who wasn't overly interested in the food I had to offer. I worked Snoopy twice for about 10 minutes each time. A good part of the first session was spent just trying to get to know him and what might motivate him. A bit of experimenting with what works for my dogs, none of which worked with this guy. Snoopy wanted to smell the grass, sniff the air, try to get to the other dogs in the yard and basically do everything in his power to distance himself from me. He wouldn't even sit on command (something he has already been trained).
I had to rethink everything I would normally do with my own dogs. After some experimentation we found a couple of things we could agree on and we started working his "couche" (down) command. (How did the only anglophone there end up training the french dog?)
The second session was much more successful and we actually got the beginning of an independent down. Snoopy was much more focussed on me and things began to click. I went from thinking in the first session that this dog was a hopeless case to seeing the potential the second time I worked him. I went from thinking in the first session that maybe I wasn't cut out for this job to thinking in the second session, "hey, I can do this".
But what I realized is that training the average pet dog is much different from training my own dogs. And it is very different from teaching dogs and people agility and flyball. Motivation and background training/experiences are so different. And trying to train these pet dogs the way I train my own dogs at home just is not going to work. I am going to have to use everything I know about dog training and be willing to experiment with different methods and tools.
This is going to be a fun adventure. And of course next we have to add in the human element. Much of what I will be doing is training people to train their dogs. That will be even more challenging.
So here I am at home now armed with a couple of DVDs to watch over the next week and looking forward to group classes on Wednesday and a ride-along initial consult on Thursday.
Things promise to get much more interesting.
Officially it all started last Saturday when I signed on to become a dog trainer with Positive Changes Dog Training in Ottawa Ontario. We did the paperwork and I signed an employment agreement and we discussed a few details on how the company operates. All done in the comfort of one of the Kanata Starbucks.
Today this venture started in ernest. Today was spent at the training centre (currently the home of the company owner) working a couple of the board and train dogs. And what I learned today is that raising a dog from puppyhood and moulding it and shaping it and doing work with it every day is entirely different from training an adult dog that has no knowledge of training or learning.
I was working with a totally unfocused, unmotivated hound mix (I'll call him Snoopy to protect his identity) who was more interested in everything else in the yard and who wasn't overly interested in the food I had to offer. I worked Snoopy twice for about 10 minutes each time. A good part of the first session was spent just trying to get to know him and what might motivate him. A bit of experimenting with what works for my dogs, none of which worked with this guy. Snoopy wanted to smell the grass, sniff the air, try to get to the other dogs in the yard and basically do everything in his power to distance himself from me. He wouldn't even sit on command (something he has already been trained).
I had to rethink everything I would normally do with my own dogs. After some experimentation we found a couple of things we could agree on and we started working his "couche" (down) command. (How did the only anglophone there end up training the french dog?)
The second session was much more successful and we actually got the beginning of an independent down. Snoopy was much more focussed on me and things began to click. I went from thinking in the first session that this dog was a hopeless case to seeing the potential the second time I worked him. I went from thinking in the first session that maybe I wasn't cut out for this job to thinking in the second session, "hey, I can do this".
But what I realized is that training the average pet dog is much different from training my own dogs. And it is very different from teaching dogs and people agility and flyball. Motivation and background training/experiences are so different. And trying to train these pet dogs the way I train my own dogs at home just is not going to work. I am going to have to use everything I know about dog training and be willing to experiment with different methods and tools.
This is going to be a fun adventure. And of course next we have to add in the human element. Much of what I will be doing is training people to train their dogs. That will be even more challenging.
So here I am at home now armed with a couple of DVDs to watch over the next week and looking forward to group classes on Wednesday and a ride-along initial consult on Thursday.
Things promise to get much more interesting.
2 comments:
I loved reading about your training experiences. You will do well in this, and it sounds like you will learn a lot of new tricks in the training world. Two sessions with the "snoopy" dog were so different, so you've picked up some new methods already. Looking forward to hearing more after your next session. Keep on blogging!
great writing , I could pretty much picture you and very interesting too. Looking forward to following you in this new venture and ToBe says you are going to be great :)
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