Teaching People Teaching Dogs: Insights and Ideas for Instructors

By Dani Weinberg

The dog-training instructor's first job: teaching people!

Our human students require much more attention and understanding than do their canines. If we don't inspire their interest and cooperation, they will not be successful in training their dogs. Dani Weinberg’s experience offers insights, information, and ideas that will help all levels of instructors both develop and maintain dog training enthusiasm and work more effectively with the human students. This two-part book looks at both the student and the instructor.

You will learn:

• Ways to communicate more effectively and how to reach “difficult” students

• How to guide students towards new belief about their dogs

• What type of instructor you are and how you can adapt your type to better assist your students

• How to receive feedback, set yourself up for success, and prevent burnout

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dogwise Publishing
• Release date: Jul 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781617812866

Book preview

Author

Inspired Instructing

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to be captured by aliens? I’ve actually had that experience. Well, not exactly by aliens, but by a different species called Dog. And not exactly captured, but captivated. It happened in the mountains of Colorado. I was attending a 5-day workshop about Conflict Resolution. On the third day, we were asked to refrain from speaking or using language in any other way (like writing notes) for the entire day. That was probably the most memorable day of the week for me—not just because of the marvelous lesson in communication, but also because of a particular moment of communication that I will never forget.

I was doing very well at following the no-speaking rule and even enjoying the silence—until the group went on a hike. We climbed a steep slope that ended at a beautiful meadow. In silence, we sat on the ground, close together, taking silent pleasure in each other’s company. Suddenly, the biggest and hairiest dog I had ever seen appeared at the edge of the meadow, seemingly emerging out of thin air because the trail up to the meadow was so steep that we had no warning of his arrival.

The dog saw our group immediately and was irresistibly drawn to us, rushing over to lick and nuzzle each person. When he came to me—I spoke! Out loud! I have absolutely no memory of the words I uttered but only of being transported—captured—into another universe. Nothing existed except the dog and me, in profound communication. I was speaking English, and he was speaking Dog, and the moment was one of perfect connection.

Then I felt an elbow (human) in my side and I came out of my trance, a little embarrassed at having broken the silence rule. The dog’s owner finally appeared on the meadow, a slower hiker than his dog.

For the rest of the day and for years to come, I marvelled at what had happened. If connection was based on communication, then how could this have happened when the two participants in the dialogue were using different languages—and one of them non-verbal?

I understand now that this was a kind of magic, a moment of complete engagement between Dog and me. I also realize that I experience this magic, in small measure, whenever I am with a dog. It can be one of my own dogs or a student’s dog—makes no difference. The moment is seldom as dramatic as it was that first time on a Colorado mountain, but I feel it just as deeply.

This magical connection is the beginning of what I call inspired instructing. It’s about being fully present, in pure communication with a dog. My students, of course, have to learn how to do this with their own dogs, but they always recognize the magic when they see me do it. Maybe this is what they’re seeing when they ask why their dogs are more attentive to me than to them. No mystery here! Inspired instructors have had lots of experience making immediate connections with new dogs. An important part of my job is to show my students that they can do this too. Once the magic is there with their own dogs, anything is possible. I have seen truly amazing turnarounds in dog behavior when the dog-person relationship was infused with real communication.

I also want to have this kind of communication with my human students. The person-to-person form of this magic is called empathy, and it comes from having had many of the same experiences that my students are now having and remembering how I felt. I know about the sleep-deprived desperation that makes me think of returning a puppy to the breeder. I know about the fury that once, many years ago, made me slap a dog on the face. (I still shudder that I was able to do this.) I know about the grief and emptiness of losing a dog.

I also know about the thrill of qualifying in an obedience trial for the first time ever, the pleasure of hiking with dogs and seeing the world through their eyes (and noses), and the transcendent joy of watching my dogs play exuberantly with each other.

When we connect empathically with our human students, we can teach them how to connect magically with their dogs. That’s inspired instructing, and that’s what this book is about.

About This Book

This book is about the dog-training instructor’s first job: teaching people. Although we describe ourselves as dog trainers, we know that our human students require much more attention and understanding than do their canines. If we don’t inspire their interest and cooperation, they will not be successful in training their dogs.

The primary message of this book is that we are teaching people first, rather than training dogs. This book is not a comprehensive work on how to be an instructor, but it will contribute to your becoming a great instructor. Nor is the book a how-to manual that gives detailed directions for teaching specific behaviors, but it will make your training instructions more effective. And if you’re training your own dog, this book will enhance your efforts by suggesting new ways to think about the teaching and learning process.

But that’s not enough. We instructors are people too. In order to do our best teaching, we must take our own humanity into account. We must constantly examine what we’re doing and why. I learned how to do this from Virginia Satir, family therapist extraordinaire, who was a major influence on my life and work. Virginia believed we have within us the resources we need to live happy and productive lives. Sometimes, though, we need help to develop our skills so that we can actually use our inner resources to best advantage.

One of Virginia’s great strengths was her ability to choose an approach to help a client and, if it didn’t seem to be working, to change course immediately, without any embarrassment or apology. She would actually say to the client Okay then, let’s try this instead. That’s what this book is for: helping you open your mind to new ideas, consider other views, and explore new possibilities in your instructing.

This book offers you information, insights, and ideas to help you work more effectively with your human students. It urges you to engage your intelligence and curiosity and courage to try some of these ideas in your own classes and private lessons. Virginia used to put it this way: Taste everything, but swallow only what fits for you.

Every outstanding instructor I know is also a lifelong student, constantly seeking new ideas to taste. As instructors, then, we have a lot in common with the people who come to our classes with their dogs. Above all, we share the dream of building the most satisfying relationships possible between people and their dogs. This book will help you and your students realize that dream.

How I Became An Instructor

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would, one day, be living with dogs, let alone have a career as a professional dog trainer and instructor.

I was raised by professional-class European parents to be highly cultivated (read marriageable). When I was 5 years old, I started taking piano lessons. When I was 10, ballet lessons were added, because my mother thought it would make me thinner and more graceful. I also took private French lessons, studied Spanish and Russian in school, and made several summer trips to Europe during my college years. After college, I continued living at home and found an interesting job, quite unrelated to my education or career dreams, while presumably waiting to find a suitable husband.

These were the things that well-bred New York City girls of my generation were supposed to do. We were well educated, usually in the humanities (more ladylike than the sciences). After graduation, we worked at respectable but low-paying jobs for a couple of years. Then, we met and married Mr. Right (my parents were sure that he would be Dr. Right, like my father). We set up house in an apartment not far from where our parents lived and, as soon as we were able to start a family, we quit our jobs to become full-time homemakers.

Most of my friends lived up to these expectations, but I was something of a disappointment to my parents. I turned down several eligible young doctors, waited until I met a man from Chicago of all places, married him when I was 25, and promptly left town for the Wild West (Michigan).

My family had come to America as refugees at the beginning of World War II. We lived in a Manhattan apartment in New York City. I don’t believe that any of my friends had pets. It never occurred to me to want a dog. One summer, I did buy some goldfish at the local five-and-dime store, but they didn’t last much longer than other living things last in Manhattan. Only the cockroaches seemed to thrive.

Instead of having dogs, we kids entertained ourselves on the city streets. Bikes and roller skates were hardly practical or safe in that environment. Instead, we played hopscotch, handball against the walls of apartment buildings, and hide and seek using the basements of apartment buildings as our hiding places.

I was not one of those animal-loving children who dreams of having a dog or owning a horse. For the first 33 years of my life, in fact, I was oblivious to the existence of non-human animals. Somewhere along the way, I realized that I was deathly afraid of dogs.

I don’t recall ever having been frightened or attacked by a dog. I suspect that my fear was something I learned from my mother. She told me that, as a child, she had had a dog—a Spitz. Years later, my mother, now a married woman with a young child, had to leave her home on 24-hours notice. She left behind everything she knew and loved, and we came to America. I believe that she simply never wanted to set herself up again for another painful loss, so she never had another dog.

I found my way into Anthropology. I went to graduate school, did my doctoral research, taught at the university for many years, and, along the way, became a Professor. During those years, I never gave a single thought to having a dog.

My first conscious and mindful encounter with a dog happened when I was 33 years old and met Heidi, a German Shepherd. Although she had a beautiful face and a sweet temperament, she would never be a breed champion because her color, a lovely golden tan, was wrong, according to the breed standard. I doubt that she was even registered with the American Kennel Club.

Heidi belonged to our neighbors across the street, and her life was idyllic. She spent her days running freely in the neighborhood, doing rounds with the postman, playing with the neighborhood kids, and going home for meals and more love from her owners. I generally avoided her. She was a dog, after all, and I was afraid of dogs.

One Easter, our neighbors were going to be out of town. They had made arrangements for someone else to come in and feed Heidi. They asked us if we could just keep an eye on her while they were gone for the week. That was the week that I began my love affair with dogs.

We opened our house to Heidi. At first, when she came to visit us, 1 was apprehensive and watchful, half expecting that she would destroy something, or pee on the carpet. Maybe even bite me. On the third day, I had an epiphany.

As usual, I was watching Heidi carefully. She was taking her morning nap on the floor of our sunroom when a large spider walked by. Immediately awake and alert, Heidi stalked the spider, following it across the room and under the piano. Then, bored with her new toy, she pounced on the spider—and it was gone! The entire event lasted no longer than 30 seconds, but, in that brief time, as I watched Heidi and the spider, it suddenly came to me: the behavior of dogs is predictable. And if it’s predictable, that means that all I had to do was watch and learn, and I would never be hurt by a dog.

Apparently, somewhere in the part of my subconscious mind that builds models, I had been classifying dogs under the heading Wild Animals. What amuses me so much about this today is that I must have also thought, at that time, that the behavior of wild animals was not predictable. I had somehow glossed wild into unpredictable (as I think many people do).

That was the beginning of the end of my fear of dogs. Several years later, when we were living on a farm in Nebraska, we were offered a German Shepherd who was a child of divorce (my sister-in-law’s). I happily joined my husband in accepting. Joe Pickle was the first in our succession of German Shepherds. He had been bom in a barn, the result of a backyard breeding. He turned out to be one of those dogs that is the exception to the rule. Even though bred casually by uninformed owners, Joe was as beautiful as any German Shepherd Champion. He was huge, weighing 110 pounds, and one of the sweetest and most gentle dogs of any breed that I’ve ever known.

After a few months of watching Joe loll around the farm, we decided he was lonely, so we bought our second German Shepherd with