My coaching philosophy as a softball coach was about the players, ethics, self direction and empowerment. Read more about it here. In relation to Rylee, our puppy, I would say that I am puppy centered and want to empower her to make good decisions when she grows up. Good decisions in our eyes anyway.
I believe that all dog owners have a disposition when it comes to training our pups. My disposition for example has always been referred to as soft. When we had our first puppy over 15 years ago people said we were too easy on her. I just could not see myself doing the pack leader thing and using any kind of intimidation or domination tactics in how we raised her.
I still very strongly feel that way. My goal for my puppy is that she feel happy, loved and safe. I never want her to feel intimidated or any fear as a result of something that I did or how I treated her.
Coaching Philosophy
I believe in the positive reinforcement methods that we have learned about in puppy class with the least amount of negative impact on Rylee. This requires an amazing amount of consistency on my part and a focus on teaching rather than expecting that she will learn things because I told her to or because I showed her once. We also learned about capturing the behaviors that we want Rylee to exhibit. It’s when we notice that she has chosen to do something such as go to her mat or sit beside or in front of someone that she wants to say hi to. This is not always easy because it is something we can miss when there is so much going on in her first year.
I need to remind myself sometimes that she only knows what she knows, in the moment. She has had negative reactions to things that she had a really bad experience with that required work to desensitize her. When she first heard a garbage truck for example, she got very scared. It had a huge effect on her. It took a long time and lots of work around the trucks for her to get desensitized to it and be ok with the sound of them.
The important thing with my training or coaching philosophy is that I want my pup to be able to make good decisions and be a polite, well mannered dog that everyone loves. My job I feel is to give her the tools through coaching her, and to give her the best opportunities to do that. I am fortunate because her disposition is very gentle so all we need to do is to nurture that personality, and guide her to the best decisions.
Everyone has a training or coaching philosophy. For me, it is just basically the way I feel that things should be done and the way I educate and train or coach my dog. I believe that the way that she perceives her training is going to effect the success of the training. I could be wrong but I also think that the trust that she has in me increases her desire to follow the training protocols. And of course the treats help too 🙂
Part of my coaching philosophy is that I feel like it is my job to find out how she is going to respond to different methods and to use the ones that can create the most success for her. The most important thing for me again is that she feel safe, happy and loved and that she doesn’t have me yelling at her or using any of the old methods. It is hard to do sometimes especially when she was a young puppy. The biting, the barking and the whining that we had to work with her on were definitely not easy. But because we were persistent, consistent and compassionate we were able to get through the toughest times. It is always a work in progress but we just keep moving forward. And she just keeps improving.