Rookie Dog Training Mistakes!
I mark and reward at the wrong times. I use a marker and grab food at the same time. I mess up my leash handling. I miss opportunities to correct behavior. Rookie mistakes. Yup. I do it occasionally. And I bet many other trainers do as well from time to time. I bet you do too. Every time I rewatch videos of myself, I can pick out like fifteen different things I did wrong or could have done better. It’s hard to put out content honestly because I want so badly for everything to be perfect. And each time people comment, “oh, this helped a lot!” Or “great video!” I sometimes internally cringe. Because I constantly feel like I am not a great trainer. That I’m not good enough to put out content. That I need to be perfect, and then I’ll be qualified enough to share knowledge. A portion of this is that the more I learn, the more I learn I know nothing. I know a drop of knowledge in a bottomless bucket. But I do it and show my work anyway because maybe someone can give me feedback. I put out all of the knowledge I know anyway because maybe it can help someone. I work every day to get better, practice, and learn more. Mistakes and all. There is nothing you do more of that you get worse at. So I keep working on the things I know and improve on the things I don’t know as well. I keep cognizant of the fact I don’t know everything and their are WAY better trainers out there than I. The point is that you’re going to make mistakes all the time. Rookie ones too. And you’re going to beat yourself up about it, but you just try to keep it in mind going into the next session to do better. And just because you don’t know everything doesn’t mean that you can’t share what you do know.