Most dog trainers got into this profession because they adopted a dog who turned out to be challenging to train or exhibited a behavior challenge. I include myself in that category. I started my journey as a student in a dog training class with my own dog. A few years later, I found myself with a sweet dog who was reactive when on leash.  Once I became a professional dog trainer, I sometimes found myself cringing when I was in public with my dog and he did not behave perfectly. After all, shouldn’t dog trainers have perfect dogs? Don’t all school teachers have perfect children? Of course they don’t. 

The longer I am in this profession, the less I care about what people think about my dogs. I care about how my dogs feel. Today I hiked with my dogs and one of them was super over aroused when we passed other dogs. This is something we are working on. When I passed two of my former students on the trail, I just waved and told them she is a “work in progress”.  There is no shame in recognizing that none of us, including our dogs, are perfect.