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A dog trainer friend of mine watched some of my videos. I asked him for feedback and and he also showed them to his sister who is not a trainer. In conclusion, he thinks they are perfect for teaching other dog trainers but could be done differently for addressing clients. He said it was too formal in his opinion and too technical and I should emphasize how each lesson relates to real life situations. WHY DO WE DO THIS? WHY SHOULD I CARE? For example, when teaching sit tell the owners why “sit” is important. having the owner practice the sit command to teach them to wait before opening the door. I told my friend “thanks for your input, I am sure there is a good balance between technical and entertaining or being informal.” So I am going to keep that in mind and try to always improve. It doesn’t hurt to show our videos to a person for the first time and get their response or feedback especially if they know nothing about dog training to see if they understand.
As for in-person lessons, I noticed that no matter how technical and specific I am with my instruction the clients still make so many mistakes when applying the info. Every week I am reminding them. I tell them to “hold the treat close to the dog’s nose and move slowly” and they do the opposite. I tell them to not say the word ‘no’ and they still say no. I tell them to practice proper command structure in the right order and they still can’t do it. I have to remind them or correct them all the time. Of course every client is different and progress at different levels. I guess what I am saying is even if our instruction is precise or perfect and accurate, I think the clients will still make mistakes no matter what. We seem to live in a new “tiktok generation”. Everyone wants more shorter and shorter videos and entertaining content to grab their attention. Im just sharing my observations. @Mike
