It's OK to get things wrong
I think Susan Garrett actually covered this better than me, and more eloquently, here. But I wrote this a few weeks ago and forgot to post it, so I win really.
Why do people get so disheartened about their bad training?
Bad training here meaning making a mistake in your training process, not the dog. Rushing a step, or skipping something, or assuming your dog has a skill that they don’t. It seems to be that an awful lot of people are doing those things and immediately writing off everything they’re doing and that they’ve done, giving up entirely instead of fixing or working around the problem.
I have to admit, this is not a problem I’ve really had. Failure to meet your ideal perfect standard is really irritating. I don’t think I’m ever going to stop being frustrated with my inability to ‘fix’ Dylan’s jumping. But I’m not going to stop working with him in competition and in training, we have fun and he’s challenging me to be a better trainer.
Kim is a great jumper, with terrible contacts and moderate weaves; Dylan has great contacts and weaves but isn’t such a great jumper. I didn’t know any better when I was training Kim, and I didn’t know enough about teaching a dog to jump with Dylan because Kim was such a natural athlete. With Rio, I hope she’ll have great contacts, weaves, and have great jumping skills, but if there is something I mess up (I’m sure there will be), I’ll still continue training and competing with her. It’s not her fault I’m incompetent.
I’m sure lots of people will disagree with me, but it feels like all I’ve heard this year is how people have stopped training/competing with their dog because they made a mistake early in training and for whatever reason, think it’s going to prevent them doing anything in the future. Why?!
6 Comments
Crystal
I have to say that I almost pulled Koira from flyball any number of times. I really didn’t know any better when first training her for flyball, and the smash and grab turn she had was awful. The retraining process took forever, and for a long time, Koira seemed to not really like flyball- not that she disliked it, but that it wasn’t super fun to her. The smash and grab turn, however, was so dangerous given how fast she runs that I needed to either to a lot of retraining or pull her from flyball. I’m glad we stuck it out, as we now have a much nicer turn (though trying to fix some double hitting), and Koira in the past few months has discovered a total love and enjoyment of the sport.
Basically though, I understand why someone might choose to stop competing with a given dog due to early training mistakes, especially if the dog is not totally in love with the activity. Sometimes, it just isn’t worth spending the time and effort to correct the mistake and not safe to go on without correcting it. However, I would always find some other sport or activity to replace the one we decided to leave, hopefully one my dog enjoyed so much I couldn’t imagine quitting.
Leanne
I have to say I agree if the dog is either stressed or unable to complete the activity safely then taking a step back is the best option.
I guess it’s more the attitude that some people seem to be taking where because whatever they’re doing/trying to do isn’t going perfectly to plan, the best thing to do is to quit and never try again. That doesn’t seem like a healthy approach for trainer or dog.
julie
I do think sometimes people don’t get the help and support of their trainers so when issues arise they are left out in the cold. If they don’t have the knowledge to fix the problems themselves and they can’t get the help they need its easy to get disheartened and lose confidence. I’ve been told to give up with 2 dogs so far on the basis of their full on attitude and also the colour of the second one. There are a ridiculous number of agility trainers in my area, I’ve been to most and they are all limited in their teaching to only one way of doing things. Most can only train you to run with your dog, if you can’t do that tough because they can’t teach you to work the dog away. So if your dog is always 3 jumps ahead and consequently turns like the QE2 they can’t do anything with that, rubbish weave entries? Shame! Hit and miss contacts? Unlucky!! A lot of people don’t have the option of travelling a long distance to train so they end up quitting. I have my own equipment and a fair idea of what I want and how to teach it, I travel 1 1/2 hours once a month to train for 1 hour privately and then work on that at home. Sometimes it would be less hassle to just stop. I’m on my 3rd competition dog and it was my last trainers attitude toward him and the fact that I could see a whole list of issues potentially developing that pushed me into making the changes I did. I think It’s often a combined failure on the part of trainer and handler
Leanne
That’s an interesting perspective, and one I hadn’t considered — perhaps because the people I had in mind when writing this post are either trainers themselves, or have access to excellent trainers, and are giving up because they either can’t or won’t work through a problem they have caused (and IMO all the problems are caused by the handler, in the end!)
I can’t believe someone told you to give up based on the colour of your dog, how ridiculous!
julie
Lol yep. First one was apparently too up for it (how???) And the second is a merle so everything he did was blamed on that. He’s also an incredibly sensitive dog who thinks too much and consequently has a short attention span. It was blatantly obvious to me but my trainer couldn’t or wouldn’t see it so I stopped going and waited 6 months to find someone else. Ultimately I am responsible for training my dog but battling a trainers biased opinions is hard work. This was a well known handler and trainer with many years experience. That raises another issue. If you train with someone who has had a reasonable amount of success and they comment on your dogs behaviour in such a way eventually you do start to question whether they are right and whether you as the handler are really just refusing to see what’s in front of you. Being a good trainer doesn’t make you a good teacher, I know of 2 people who recently gave up agility after a very successful handler and trainer made them feel very low over their dogs abilities. These are good dogs with potential who are now doing flyball instead.
Leanne
The attitude of some agility trainers is a whole other topic! I personally think people need positive training methods as well as dogs, too many trainers have no people skills or are simply pre-programmed to spout the inevitable “Well, you have got a Spaniel/Merle/Small/Lurcher/Whatever dog!”, which sounds innocuous but is actually very harmful. Someone is faulting the dog before the handler have even begun, which sets them up for failure.
In circumstances like those, I agree that training can be very difficult to overcome. However, I still don’t think that writing the dog off is an appropriate response; the dog isn’t at fault for the efforts of the handler/owner/trainer/whoever! Although admitting that a certain sport or discipline isn’t working is sensible IMO, and taking those experiences to build a more successful partnership elsewhere is great.