As much as I tease that I’m a luddite, I truly am not. and I do find a lot of technology to be pretty darn helpful. I must say, Zoom has opened up my world professionally so much. Like, wow, so much! It truly is such a better method and approach for me to be able to meet with my clients.
It’s safer. It’s better. It’s so much more effective.
When we first meet, there is a deluge of information back and forth. I’m asking questions, I want to hear about everything, I want to give a ton of information (while also not be overwhelming!), and I want to be able to have everyone as focused as possible. This is done when there aren’t multiple parties worried about the dog in the room and how they are going to react or handle a stranger in the room. Focus can’t happen when that dog is barking for then entire meeting, nor can everyone participate and learn if one person feels they need to take their dog to the back room and hang out with them while the scary new person is in their home. I’ve been told before that people were worried about having me come over and spent the entire day cleaning for my arrival! I also know that many people want their dog to perform for me. Like, either show off all the tricks they might have learned, show off what a good leader they are (gross, but not the topic on hand), but most people really really want to show me their dog barking and lunging and snapping and biting. No thanks. I’ve seen it before. A whole lot. Like a whole lot.
It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s that it’s not helpful. It’s actually really detrimental. My goal overall is to have your dog be comfortable, feel safe and secure, and not be put in situations they can not handle. If the first time I meet your dog they absolutely lose it and are freaking out, I’ve done you a huge disservice. I’ve made it so your dog again has gone over threshold, been proven yet again that their environment is not safe, and yet another stupid human doesn’t seem to understand or listen to them (I’m projecting here of course, I just see things from dog’s point of view and can only imagine their frustration with the human race sometimes). After the dog barks, lunges, snaps etc. The human either reacts with “See!” or they themselves get stressed out and worry about their dog, trying to hush them, telling them “no no no!” or even try to hold the dogs mouth literally closed. EEK!! please stop.
So no, I do not need to see your dog lose their cool. We go over your dogs behaviors in detail, I ask a ton of questions, I want to learn about what happens before, after and how the human is handling it. Ideally when we are meeting over Zoom, your dog is resting and either catching up on much needed sleep, or enjoying some long term calming projects. I mean, your dog doesn’t even need to be there. Are you stuck in the office again and want to take your lunch hour talking about your dog, please do so!
When we meet up for on going coaching sessions, online is available to everyone, regardless of where they live, and what the issues are with the dog. I do have an option for in-person coaching with a big asterick attached to that. When I say in-person, this comes with a lot of requirements that need to be met first. And know, a lot of times there is actually no need to ever meet up in person, and it would be totally disruptive to our work together. So how does dog training work online? Well, again, it’s more then just capital T Training. But say we are working on skill building, I can coach you from where you are, I can show you my mechanics on my end. We review video, go over previous work and map out exactly how you’ll keep going. We’ll break down these skills together and work at you and your dogs pace. What’s really helpful about taking video, is we are able to slow down and rewatch it as much as we want, note those more subtle body language signs, slow down and think about the mechanics and take note on how to improve the next time. And because I encourage all my clients to share video for feedback between sessions, you can work on this anytime you want and just send me a link to email.
I know a lot of people are still thinking, yea yea, that’s nice and all, but I need someone here. Like in front of me. holding my dog’s leash. showing me what to do. You know what, I did that for a long time. In fact, I used to offer “day training” where I worked with the dog solo many times a week. The goal was to have handover sessions with the guardian so that I could transfer those skills over. But what repeatedly occurred was the guardian had checked out. They thought, great, someone else is “fixing” my dog and I don’t need to do anything. Handover sessions would be canceled, or the person would make up some flimsy excuse to why they couldn’t participate that day but hand me the leash to use the session with the dog. Ugh. So no, I put a hard stop to that. Maybe it was a few bad apples that ruined it for everyone. But I know that for even my most amazing and dedicated clients, the handover sessions seemed overwhelming. I was trying to get their mechanics up to speed, showing them in lightning speed the work I was doing and how advanced their dog had gotten at the skills. When they took the leash, you could see the frustration building as well, feelings of defeat. Truly excellent dog handlers made comments like, well, ‘she does it for you but not for me!’. It didn’t feel good and I knew there was a better way.
Refining my approach and making sure that the guardian is not just a participant, but the focus point, has been transformational. Yes, the dog is our focus too, don’t worry. It’s just, this way, you are working together. You are learning more about your dog, your dog is learning from you. That bond grows, as does that sense of safety and security. It’s so awesome to see and I’m lucky to be a little part of it. So embrace online learning, keep an open mind, and reach out to me anytime. You know I’ll talk dog forever, whatever medium that maybe.
