The APDT Chronicle of the Dog Summer 2020 | Page 49

FEATURE | TRAINING TIPS
A skilled dog training instructor, like a skilled medical professional
is PRESENT with the client, and LISTENS without filling in the
blanks. They come prepared with a tentative agenda but deviate from
it as needed. A skilled trainer, like a skilled medical professional,
can get the information they need to assist their client through
conversation that is client-centered, and they can find out all they
need to know and document it accurately by simply listening.
They provide instruction that meets the needs of the individual,
not a textbook picture, and that instruction should not be a list of
everything anyone would need to know on the subject that comes to
them as they talk, but a carefully thought out lesson on what it is that
individual needs to know. The instruction includes key details, but
not too much detail, delivered in an organized way that makes sense.
A good trainer knows how to build a curriculum to achieve the needs
and goals of his or her client rather than his/her own.
Quick Tip For Trainers
and Dog Owners
By Cindy Ludwig, M.A., R.N., KPA-CTP, CPDT-KA
I
just had an experience where some key details were left out of
the instruction I received for something non-dog related. While
many people seem to think that telling is teaching, it is not. It
is so much more than that, and a skilled teacher, instructor, or
trainer, like a skilled artisan, musician, or dancer, can make what
they do look easy. Actually, a skilled performer in any field, teaching
and training included, is far more difficult than most people realize.
After teaching in many different roles for many years, I can say
that the one thing anyone aspiring to be a teacher or trainer needs
to master, beside their craft, is the art of listening and empathizing.
As Steven Covey, the author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People,” says, “Seek first to understand.” When I visit clients in their
homes, or teach a dog training class, I bring an agenda, but that’s a
framework for modifications as necessary. Every person, every dog,
every situation is unique.
I recently had an appointment with a nurse practitioner (NP) who I’d
seen a couple times before. Not only did the office have my address
wrong (one I had never lived at during the time I had visited this
particular practice) and my medications totally wrong (someone
else’s) but the NP assumed I had seasonal allergies. I don’t know that
I’ve ever said I had seasonal allergies. I have them year-around. I’m
not another patient with a similar condition; I’m a unique patient
who doesn’t always fit the textbook picture.
A good instructor knows just how much information to provide
to any given individual in any given situation, and in what order
to provide the information. A good instructor doesn’t merely show
or explain, but she or he actually gets inside the learner’s thoughts
and emotions, that is s/he empathizes with the learner to provide
the emotional support learner, as well as the tailored education
and instruction the learner needs. It’s important to strike a balance
between what the learner says he or she needs, what you as the trainer
knows she or he needs to know that the learner doesn’t know s/he
needs, what the learner can digest and what is the right amount of
information at the time.
Education and training is an art and a science, like many other
professionals. Dispensing the right information at the right time in
the right dose to the right people in the right order, and in a way that
is uniquely understandable to the learner. There are different ways to
do this, but that’s a topic for another day.
Cindy Ludwig is a Certified
Professional Dog Trainer and Karen
Pryor Academy Certified Training
Partner and owns a professional dog
training business called Canine
Connection LLC. She has been a
Registered Nurse (RN) for more than
four decades and is currently
employed as the Home Health
Clinical Educator for Integrity Home
Care & Hospice, headquartered in Springfield, Missouri. Cindy has a
Bachelor of Science degree with a major in science from the University of
Findlay in Ohio, and a Master of Arts degree in higher and adult education
from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her clinical experience includes
many years as a certified critical care nurse (CCRN) in some of the nation’s
top medical centers, including the world’s largest, the Texas Medical Center
in Houston, Texas where she cared for patients with AIDS at the onset of the
AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
Photo: Shutterstock
The APDT Chronicle of the Dog | Summer 2020 47