Collaboration. It's a key part of being an ethical dog trainer, veterinary, shelter, or daycare worker. One of the best ways to uphold this standard is to seek help and advice from those who have more experience and education than us. This is where receiving criticism comes in. It can be difficult and this week, I will be discussing the importance of taking criticism and why it is a life skill with Yona Rapport. “As a community growing each year, it’s important that we all uphold similar standards of practice. There is a balance to be had between rigid but flexible, steadfast but open to improvement, respecting the ‘experts’ but always thinking critically so that we never find ourselves blindly following this guru or that. We cannot let perfection be the enemy of the good; almost all progress graphs have hills and valleys from day to day. Learning is messy because humans are messy. Our job is to seek people who help us to zoom out on that graph and verify the steady up-trend of progress over time.” – Yona Rapport Yona Rappaport, CPDT-KA, KPA-CTPYona is the owner and operator of Science at Play Dog Training, Behavior and Gear, Health Department Behavior Technician at Pasadena Humane Society and SPCA, social media manager for Humane Dog Training Advocates and Shelter Playgroup Alliance volunteer. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge of effective, ethical, evidence-based  training with clients and their dogs. Science at Play leashes focus on the right item for the individual with many options to achieve the lightest line possible. In addition to standard leashes for pet parents, she also designs and tests specialty equipment for use in a number of settings such as shelter specific leashes made to reduce stress on dogs and increase safety for handlers in a kennel setting.Support YonaHer leashes are great! https://www.scienceatplay.net/https://www.shelterdogplay.orghttps://www.humanedogtrainingadvocates.com/This weeks episode SponsorGalaxy Vets - https://www.galaxyvets.com/Support the show TwitterFacebookInstagramEmail