Want to help, but don't know how

[j-f]

I live in Estonia, and here among the dog trainers there is a long history of traditional training. What is more, one of the new "waves" the dog owners here have accepted is the Dog Listener concept. Which is sad. I'm not saying people in Estonia haven't heard of clicker training, yes they have, many use it in agility for example.

My general concern here is, that I think people haven't gotten the "positively" concept what we all support here in this forum. Victoria's earlier seasons have run on television here, but that had no general impact. I feel like I'm blessed with knowing that there IS ANOTHER WAY apart from punishing and nagging, but I don't know how to tell people. People use clicker training, which in my eyes is the perfect example of positive training, only for tricks and agility, not with behavior problems.

I go to Estonian dog forums and see people asking for help with anxious and problematic dogs and I want to help, I can almost always think of some ideas to make the situation better with their dogs and problems, because I have watched so many Victoria's shows and read about dog behavior, but I don't really have experiences. My dog is perfectly behaving (except while its thundering, but we're working on that) and I don't think people will let some 20 year old girl who has no papers proving experience to train their dogs.

I probably would struggle in the beginning, but I want to get experiences so I could help people in the future. I've had some experience, I taught a young dachshund to walk nicely without barking on passengers and to stop barking at doorbell and tried basic training with clicker on a spaniel. And I'm still experiencing with clicker training on my dog, we are learning how to pull from rope right now.

I've been thinking that maybe people in shelters would let me try make the dogs behave better so they would be adopted. But when I saw the people responsible for the shelter in my town, well, they probably know nothing about training dogs or dogs' behavior I fear they would never let me close to their dogs. The group of young volunteers that go there, only walk/play with the dogs or help with cleaning. And they are not allowed to go close to bad behaving dogs as they may bite them.

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The other thing I've been thinking about, is clicker training and other animals besides dogs. In Karen Pryor's "Reaching animal mind" there are descriptions of people working in zoos, doing amazing things with clicker. They can manage animals better, have regular medical checkups and animals are not afraid of their keepers. I feel I'd like to introduce clicker training to the zoos in my country, but again, who on earth would let a 20 year old with no experience experiment with wild animals? I could tell them what other zoos in the world have accomplished, but again I fear they would not listen to me, and I can't give them any examples as I haven't personally seen or worked in a zoo using clicker, only have made a duck to "quack" to get pieces of bread.

Phew, I got my thoughts out there and I feel a bit better now

[emmabeth]

Get your foot in the door any way you can at shelters - just go walk the dogs, you can do lots of easy training things on walks and when you are well known and trusted, you can ask for a bit more responsibility.

Having your own dog and having them well trained is a huge bonus, so teach your dog as many useful tricks and behaviours as you can too.

Asides from that, read everything and anything you can, good AND bad - it is useful to see what people were doing/maybe still are doing and why, why does it appear to work for some people etc etc.

[j-f]

Thank you so much for your answer! It has inspired me to collaborate in shelters and try to help them, while possibly getting good experience myself

[j-f]

Yesterday I met with a group of young people helping the shelter in my town. I became a member and now have a cute rottweiler mix, to whom I'm allowed to teach basic commands! His name is Jänki (pronounced "yankee") and I heard that one of his biggest problems is that he attacks other dogs.

I don't know on what circumstances and how many times it has happened, it was only mentioned to me by one of the members. I have walked him once and he seems like a super-friendly (to people) intelligent dog. He didn't seem to mind the dogs near his dog-house at all. He's been there for almost a year, so training him would maybe help find him an owner. I'm not sure if I have enough courage or knowledge to help him overcome the aggressiveness towards other dogs (if that's the case), but I'll see.

Anyways, I'm happy I can help the shelter in my town in the way I dreamed I could help!