21 Říj Part 6 – Long term cooperation – relationship with the trainer

We’ve reached the last part of this long series about dog trainers. If you have followed it up until now, you probably found yourself a damn good trainer. He has a good online presence or was recommended to you by someone you trust. He communicates well, makes a good first impression, and leads your training in an effective way. 

Last but not least, I want to talk about other things. You know, those that aren’t tied to advancing your dog, teaching him another exercise, getting another title. Those that make you smile when you realize it’s a training day. Those that make you fall in love with this sport and never look back. 

• Motivation. It’s not enough to help you progress with your dog. A good trainer should also be able to motivate his clients. You know you’ll have moments when you want to give up, when life gets in the way of training your dog or things aren’t progressing as fast as you would like them to. 

During those times, your trainer should be there to motivate you in any way you need (like I described in the carrot and stick point in one of the previous articles). Sometimes, all you need is to hear that everything will be alright and you just need to persist for a few more sessions before it will work out. Sometimes, you need to be told to stop feeling sorry for yourself, get off your ass, and work harder. 

A good trainer knows you well, your weaknesses as well as your strengths. He provides exactly what you need to keep going and never stagnate, even when it’s hard. And it is hard. If it weren’t, we would all be world champions.

• You see him evolving as a trainer. This one is really long-term, we’re talking more like years than months. I said before that it’s important for a trainer to have a reliable system. 

The tricky thing is, this system needs to be rigid enough not to change every other month after the trainer visits a new seminar. But at the same time, it needs to be flexible so it can adjust to new developments in dog training. Finding the right balance is sometimes hard. 

Generally speaking, the less experienced the trainer is, the faster his system will probably be evolving. The fewer seminars he has attended. the more a new one can impact his way of thinking about training. The more experience he has, the more he might stick to his old ways and be wary of something new he could consider a fad. 

It’s hard. Believe me, I know that. As a trainer, I have to overcome my ego and be open to new information and new methods. At the same time, I have to be always aware of my basic principles and not violate them because I saw someone perform something amazing with his dog at a seminar I attended. There is no hard and fast rule for this. You kind of have to feel your way around. 

Nevertheless, if your trainer hasn’t changed a thing in his system for the past several years, something is wrong. Dog training is evolving, and fast. Us trainers need to evolve, too.

• Fun, quality time, community. Training dogs is hard sometimes. Like everything, it’s got its dark moments, its pitfalls to overcome. That’s what gives it meaning. But despite that, going to your training sessions should be fun. It should be your downtime, and you should look forward to it. 

You shouldn’t dread it or be anxious about it. Well, you can be a bit anxious about it – wanting to show off how hard you worked between sessions. You know, the good kind of anxiety. But you should know you have some fun to look forward to training dogs, laughing, maybe chatting with others who work with the same trainer. 

Maybe you guys pull out the grill and have yourself a barbecue during the training, or maybe you order pizza. (In that case, please think of your poor trainer. We are hungry, too, and it’s hard to catch a break to eat. My clients usually have to force me to sit down and eat something when I am in the zone.) 

Training should be fun for your dog – and for you, too.

• Friend and authority figure at the same time. Another tricky one. I didn’t realize until writing this article how many things a good trainer has to balance to be an effective guide for his clients. This job is hard, folks! 

On the one hand, you want to have a good time with your trainer. Joke around, have some fun, feel like you are if not friends,  at least good acquaintances. But on the other hand, you should respect him as an authority figure, feel like he has superior experiences and knowledge required to help you. 

If you two were buddies on the same level of experience, why should you pay him money to train you? And contrary to that, if you constantly felt like a child being lectured in school by a strict professor, where is the fun in that? Why would you do that in your downtime? 

Balance. It’s a tricky business.

• You are on the same journey. Last but not least, when working with your trainer you should feel like you are on the same boat. He might be the captain leading you on, but it’s the same boat, the same direction. He pushes you and motivates you in the direction you want to go. 

You share this awesome journey together, rejoicing about the highs and working through the lows. The relationship with your trainer isn’t exactly friendship; there is always a bit of an imbalance in there. But it should feel like friendship. You should care for each other in a way. 

Well, that’s it. After multiple installments, we are finally done describing the perfect trainer. I honestly didn’t think this article would get to be so long when I started writing it. I didn’t realize how passionate I am about many things on this extensive, multipart list. I found out that some of it is really tricky and a trainer has to keep multiple balls in the air in perfect balance. 

I would like you to take away three things from this series:

1. Obviously, know how to find and recognize a good trainer and stick with him. I believe we covered that in extensive detail.
2. Please don’t tolerate bad trainers. This is a big one for me. Unfortunately, there are still to this day many bad trainers out there. Recognize them. Avoid them. Please, this is important. 

If we want dog training to get better, to avoid abusing dogs and training them incorrectly, this is the way to go. Share this article series with your friends who might need it. Help them recognize they deserve better. They love their dogs, so they should demand the best services for them. I believe that together we can make a difference and really elevate dog training. It’s why I do all of this, so it has to be possible!

3. Realize that being a good dog trainer isn’t easy. If you have a good one, cherish him and let him know. This job is hard, and trust me, if we were doing it for money, we wouldn’t be doing it so well. A message with thanks, a mention in a Facebook post, a recommendation, a cake and hot coffee brought to a freezing session in the middle of the winter – that’s what we work for, that’s what keeps us going.

Thanks for sticking with me to the very end. Be mindful when choosing and working with a trainer. You owe it to yourself and your dog.