the antecedents that preceded Margaret ignoring the toy ? Was there another dog walking by on the street that distracted her ? Was I looming over her and she got anxious ? Do I need a more appealing toy ? What other things in the environment might need to be different in order for Margaret to be more successful at performing the behavior I asked of her ?
Approaching the breakdown in communication between Margaret and me as problem solving vs . a failure normalizes it , and indeed it IS a normal part of living with dogs ! And it is a teaching moment . My students learn how to problem solve for themselves . And we all get a good laugh , which makes the class more fun .
Betsy Schwartz , CPDT-KA whattagooddog . com When teaching 4-to-6 group classes a day , there is usually something that does not go as planned . Those times seem to just make me , as an instructor , a little more human in the eyes of my students instead of the dog training goddess they all thought I was ! How many times do I take a dog from class to use as a demo dog and have that dog not do what I am trying to demonstrate ? When it happens , I look at it as a “ teachable moment ” to show the class what can be done in those cases , and to highlight that patience and not getting frustrated or stressed out is the way to work through it . I have had a lot of those moments recently when , for the first time in my teaching career , I brought my puppy to puppy class as a demo dog - demo as in demon ! Honestly , it was a great thing to do for me , my pup and my class . My students all felt better about their own progress with their puppies , and Aero presented plenty of teachable moments for us all .
Those are things we may not have ultimate control over . In my control , I can ’ t count the number of times in the past I forgot to bring a roster , lesson plan or the agility course map — I finally got smart enough to put things into Dropbox so I could , worse case , access them on my phone . Crisis averted with that ! To be totally unprepared is unprofessional , but to screw up sometimes is totally human . As such , we can ’ t all be as perfect as our canines !
Jamie McKay , CPDT-KSA , gained her early experience at the Humane Society of Westchester teaching safe handling skills to volunteers to enhance the adoptability of shelter dogs . Jamie teaches group classes at Port Chester Obedience Training Club in New York . She is a Canine Good Citizen evaluator and competes in agility and rally obedience . Jamie and her husband ,
Stephen , CPDT-KSA , own McKay9 Dog Training , LLC .
The APDT Chronicle of the Dog | Spring 2024 61