I was having a chat with one of our student, Amber was there and she wasn't exercised enough for a few days due to the rain and pest appearing more frequently.
For a start, she was behaving rather well off leash, coming back by herself after roaming too far off and doing her marking near the drains as we've taught. Then suddenly, one of our boarding guest started to bark non stop, Amber followed and soft barked a couple of times, our student seemed like she was expecting a correction from me, but I didn't do anything and continued our conversation. Moments later, Amber started to whine as she couldn't get any attention from the humans, I kept quiet and ignored. Everything started to collapse when she was asked to go into the carrier, well she did it perfectly, only problem was she didn't want to come out when called, instead of punishing her or pulling her out, I walked over to Nicole, brought out some treats and rewarded her when she came out.
If you've been a teacher or attempted to teach someone before, you'd understand the feeling of being the person with knowledge, and students no matter if they are children or adults will be looking at you for guidance. If at any point of time there's any mistake or failure on their part, many teachers would feel ashamed of themselves and start doing something to amend or cover up these weaknesses.
Now in my situation, I was supposed to feel embarrassed of the way my dog behaved, if I were to shout at Amber and forced her to listen, she'd follow everything and behave herself, but i can predict that within 5 minutes she's start all over again. And the reason? It's not her fault, it's mine that she didn't get enough exercises! If this was a normal situation and she does that then of course I would correct the behavior, but in that particular situation, I felt that there were no need to embarrass her in front of other people just to cover for my mistake.
I remembered when I was young and in school, I attempted to protect my sister by threatening the student that bullied her. The student's parent came and I was caught by the discipline master, I knew that the action was wrong, but I denied and continue acting tough, showing that I've done nothing wrong, it was all about a stupid thing called PRIDE.
The discipline master then said this to me:
"How much is pride? How much does your pride cost per gram, come I buy from you"
True enough, I noticed that many relationships are tarnished by pride, if I were to cover my embarrassment, it'll always be at the expense of pushing the blame to another person. In Amber's situation, if I were to cover my pride by embarrassing her, she may seemingly behave better but at at the expense of losing trust in me. I've encountered situation during lessons where dogs don't listen to my commands and demonstration, nevertheless I would just persist, repeat and guide the dog till I succeed and gain the respect I need, and this always turn out well no matter how tough the situation is. In fact, I've never felt embarrassed by problems, if there are no problems then there will be nothing to learn, why not just learn to admit it and move on?
For a start, she was behaving rather well off leash, coming back by herself after roaming too far off and doing her marking near the drains as we've taught. Then suddenly, one of our boarding guest started to bark non stop, Amber followed and soft barked a couple of times, our student seemed like she was expecting a correction from me, but I didn't do anything and continued our conversation. Moments later, Amber started to whine as she couldn't get any attention from the humans, I kept quiet and ignored. Everything started to collapse when she was asked to go into the carrier, well she did it perfectly, only problem was she didn't want to come out when called, instead of punishing her or pulling her out, I walked over to Nicole, brought out some treats and rewarded her when she came out.
If you've been a teacher or attempted to teach someone before, you'd understand the feeling of being the person with knowledge, and students no matter if they are children or adults will be looking at you for guidance. If at any point of time there's any mistake or failure on their part, many teachers would feel ashamed of themselves and start doing something to amend or cover up these weaknesses.
Now in my situation, I was supposed to feel embarrassed of the way my dog behaved, if I were to shout at Amber and forced her to listen, she'd follow everything and behave herself, but i can predict that within 5 minutes she's start all over again. And the reason? It's not her fault, it's mine that she didn't get enough exercises! If this was a normal situation and she does that then of course I would correct the behavior, but in that particular situation, I felt that there were no need to embarrass her in front of other people just to cover for my mistake.
I remembered when I was young and in school, I attempted to protect my sister by threatening the student that bullied her. The student's parent came and I was caught by the discipline master, I knew that the action was wrong, but I denied and continue acting tough, showing that I've done nothing wrong, it was all about a stupid thing called PRIDE.
The discipline master then said this to me:
"How much is pride? How much does your pride cost per gram, come I buy from you"
True enough, I noticed that many relationships are tarnished by pride, if I were to cover my embarrassment, it'll always be at the expense of pushing the blame to another person. In Amber's situation, if I were to cover my pride by embarrassing her, she may seemingly behave better but at at the expense of losing trust in me. I've encountered situation during lessons where dogs don't listen to my commands and demonstration, nevertheless I would just persist, repeat and guide the dog till I succeed and gain the respect I need, and this always turn out well no matter how tough the situation is. In fact, I've never felt embarrassed by problems, if there are no problems then there will be nothing to learn, why not just learn to admit it and move on?
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