DEVELOPING A RELATIONSHIP

I really believe the one thing that separates a good animal trainer from a great animal trainer is that the great animal trainer has found a way to build an awesome relationship with the animal he’s training. As I look at back at my career and recall some of the best animal trainers I’ve had the opportunity to work with, they were always the ones who were creative, established a relationship, and made the learning fun. They did a great job at STEP TWO! Make no mistake: some good animal trainers have accomplished a great deal with some of the animals they’ve trained without building and establishing a relationship. The questions I ask are, “How much better would the animals have been, and how much more would they have gotten out of the animal if they completed STEP TWO and a relationship had been established?

There are a number of reasons I have continued training animals over the past 30 years. The biggest reason is that it has always been a lot of fun, and when it’s fun for the animal and the animal is really into what you’re doing and having a good time, the enjoyment is further multiplied. I’ve also been in situations early in my career where I’ve seen what happens when a relationship was never developed and the animal was not having fun. I saw how difficult it was for the animal, and how the training session could quickly “go south” as it turned into a boring and unpleasant experience for everyone involved, including the animal.

If you take a look back at STEP ONE, the one thing that we did was we found out a lot of answers to many questions. The reason we did that is that we were trying to gather information about the animal. There is a very important reason for that. Once we obtained the information that gave us the opportunity to go back to the animal start implementing some ideas on a variety of different things. The more information you get, the more you can offer your dog, and build that relationship. Once this happens, you can then begin to BUILD THE TRUST.