Confessions of a Dog Trainer: Airing all our Dirty Laundry

Well, here it is. My very first blog from Follow the Leader.  I’ve read a lot of training blogs, books, videos and webinars, and they’re all amazing.  In fact, they’re so amazing that they never fail to remind me of my inadequacies.  The more I learn, the more I feel like a doggie-dummy … hopelessly adrift in a sea of people that know more than I do and have more talent than I do.  So when I sat down and decided to write a blog I thought, “How can we make ourselves accessible to our clients? How can we relate to your everyday dog owner in a way that makes them feel heard?”

The answer? Tell the truth.

Dog training isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.  You know those perfectly edited videos of wonder-dogs doing cartwheels through hoops of fire?  Well, what you don’t see is how many takes it gets to reach that ONE good performance.  How many countless hours of tedium and frustration spent in the middle of the living room with nothing but a treat pouch and a temper tantrum.  I always tell my clients that I’m a classic case of “the cobbler whose kids have no shoes.”  Yes, I’m a dog trainer.  Yes, I have two fantastic little dogs.  But no, they are not anywhere  near perfect and no, I don’t always enjoy getting out the rollover for another training session. In fact, I can relate to the majority of you who have almost no time to fit in breakfast, let alone a twenty minute session working on “hind end awareness”.

So the goal of this blog, my friends, is to meet you somewhere in the middle.  I can give you some realistic tips to help you get to that point where you ENJOY your furry companion without feeling like you’re never good enough or never working hard enough.  Hopefully you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy dishing my trainer “dirty little secrets.” Hopefully you enjoy learning that yes, we all wish our dogs were better.  Hopefully you’ll keep reading … can’t wait to see how this works out 🙂