26,000 Dogs? Blimey. Have You Been Training Them in Shifts?
Apparently, we're not just dog trainers anymore. We're competing in the canine equivalent of the numbers game.
A little credit where it's due.
Before I get accused of stealing someone else's homework, I should mention a post I spotted recently by Fitz at Cosford Dog Training.
Fitz has already beaten me to the punch on this one, raising some very reasonable questions about the rather impressive numbers being thrown around by some trainers.
And honestly, I love seeing it.
It's refreshing to see another trainer willing to question things, challenge the industry and occasionally risk being unpopular for asking questions that perhaps deserve asking.
So, credit where it's due, Fitz. You've beaten me to it, and you've saved me the trouble of being the first miserable sod to point it out.
I'd genuinely encourage people to visit Cosford Dog Training and read Fitz's original post. It's well worth a look, and I'd much rather see more trainers encouraging this sort of discussion than simply competing to see who can produce the most impressive professional biography.
I'm not going to repeat Fitz's argument here. They've already covered that nicely.
But seeing their post, followed by another claim I spotted this morning from a trainer apparently having worked with over 26,000 dogs, got me thinking.
Perhaps there's a bigger question we should be asking.
Not simply how many dogs someone has worked with, but why we seem to have become so obsessed with the number in the first place.
Because when did dog training become a competition to see who can collect the biggest number?
And, more importantly, what exactly does that number tell a prospective client about the person they're trusting with their dog?
Congratulations. You've met lots of dogs. Now what?
Let's assume someone genuinely has personally worked with 26,000 individual dogs.
That's an extraordinary amount of work, and I'm not suggesting otherwise.
But what does that number actually tell me?
Does it tell me how well they understand canine behaviour?
Does it tell me whether they recognise fear, stress and discomfort?
Does it tell me whether they can distinguish between a dog that's struggling and one that's simply never learned a particular skill?
Does it tell me how they approach a dog with a bite history?
Does it tell me whether they know when to stop, change direction or refer a case to someone else?
Does it tell me whether they can teach an owner to understand their dog rather than simply demonstrate how clever they are at handling it?
No.
It tells me they've encountered a lot of dogs.
That's all.
You could work with 26,000 dogs and make exactly the same mistakes with every single one of them.
You could spend 20 years repeating the same techniques, delivering the same advice and never once seriously question whether you're actually helping.
Congratulations. You've achieved consistency.
Unfortunately, it isn't necessarily the sort of consistency I'd be advertising.
Experience isn't a numbers game.
This is where I think the conversation becomes much more interesting.
There's a difference between having experience and having developed experience.
If you've been doing something for 20 years, I'd like to think you've spent at least some of that time learning, questioning and developing.
Have you changed your approach when you've discovered something wasn't working?
Have you reconsidered techniques you once thought were perfectly acceptable?
Have you learned to recognise when a dog's behaviour has more to do with fear, pain, frustration or environmental pressure than a lack of obedience?
Have you ever admitted you were wrong?
Because if your answer to that last question is no, I'm not sure I'd be particularly impressed by your 26,000 dogs.
Personally, I'd be more interested in what you've learned from dog number 26 than how quickly you got to number 26,000.
There's a rather old saying about 20 years of experience versus one year's experience repeated 20 times.
I think it applies rather nicely here.
Time served isn't the same as professional development.
And being busy isn't necessarily the same as being good.
The problem with collecting impressive numbers.
I find the industry's obsession with impressive credentials rather interesting.
We've got trainers advertising the number of dogs they've trained, the number of years they've been doing it, the qualifications they've collected and, occasionally, enough letters after their names to make an alphabet soup.
Now, qualifications and experience absolutely have their place.
Education matters. Practical experience matters. Continuing professional development matters.
But none of these things should be treated as an automatic guarantee of competence.
A certificate doesn't magically make someone good at their job.
Twenty years in business doesn't mean they've spent 20 years developing. it means their good at business.
And a biography containing an impressive five-digit number doesn't tell me whether I'd trust that person with a dog.
Perhaps I'm missing something.
Maybe I'm supposed to be terribly impressed, immediately reach for my bank card and book a consultation.
Unfortunately, I'm more inclined to ask a few questions.
How do you assess a dog?
How do you decide which approach is appropriate?
What happens when your original plan doesn't work?
How do you recognise when a dog is uncomfortable?
And are you prepared to admit when something is beyond your experience?
Those are the things I'd like to know.
Not whether you've managed to collect enough dogs to fill a small town.
And what about the owner?
Something else worth considering is what actually happens after the trainer goes home.
My own approach to dog training is heavily focused on the owner.
I spend considerably more time teaching people than physically handling their dogs.
Why?
Because I'm not going home with the dog.
The owner is.
I can demonstrate a technique, manage a difficult situation or show somebody how to work through a particular problem.
But if they don't understand why we're doing it, when to use it or how to recognise when their dog is struggling, what have I really achieved?
I'd rather spend three hours helping an owner understand their dog than spend three hours demonstrating how wonderful I am at handling it.
And sometimes the most valuable thing I can tell an owner is that we need to slow down, change our expectations or stop doing something altogether.
That might not look particularly impressive on a training video.
It probably won't generate thousands of views.
And I doubt it'll make a particularly exciting Facebook biography.
But it might make a considerable difference to that dog.
Perhaps we should start asking better questions.
When choosing a trainer, I'd encourage owners to look beyond impressive numbers.
Ask what their experience actually involves.
Ask how they assess dogs.
Ask how they adapt their approach to individual circumstances.
Ask what happens when something doesn't work.
Ask whether they understand the importance of the owner's involvement.
Ask whether they're prepared to acknowledge their limitations.
And perhaps ask how they keep their knowledge up to date.
Because I'd rather have a trainer who has worked with 500 dogs and genuinely learned something from each of them than one who has worked with 26,000 and believes the number itself is evidence of competence.
Experience should make us more thoughtful, not more impressed with ourselves.
A final word from the bad guy.
I want to be clear that I'm not accusing anyone of making up their figures.
Perhaps they've genuinely worked with 26,000 individual dogs. Perhaps they've worked with considerably more.
If so, congratulations.
But if you're going to use an extraordinary number to persuade potential clients that you're particularly experienced, I don't think asking how you've arrived at that number is unreasonable.
In fact, I'd suggest it's a perfectly sensible question.
And if asking it makes me the bad guy, I'll happily accept the role.
Apparently, I'm not very good at playing along with the industry's popularity contest.
I don't have 26,000 dogs to put on my CV.
I don't have a conveyor belt of puppies arriving every Monday morning.
And I haven't yet discovered a way of charging for every time somebody mentions their dog's name on a telephone consultation.
What I do have is a genuine interest in learning, a willingness to question my own decisions and an understanding that every dog in front of me deserves to be treated as an individual.
So, here's my question.
If you've trained 26,000 dogs, what exactly have you learned from them?
Because that's the thing I'd really like to hear about.
And perhaps, while we're at it, we could stop confusing impressive marketing figures with professional competence.
There are plenty of things in dog training worth counting.
The number of dogs on your Facebook profile probably isn't one of them.
Although I suppose it's easier to count dogs than admit you still have things to learn.
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