Want some advice?
Advice management is interesting. Actually, I'm not sure 'advice management' is an expression, but it's what came to mind. It seems there are two basic types of advice, advice given unbidden and advice that is sought out. I've been thinking about both types of advice lately, and where things seem to go wrong.

In general, I completely don't understand giving unbidden advice. If someone asks me what I think, I'm more than happy to give an opinion, make suggestions, etc. but if I'm not asked, then it's none of my business. There are situations in which someone might have to step in and take action because someone else is doing something stupid, but that still doesn't call for giving advice. Case in point, if a small child is about to run into the street and get hit by a car because the parent is distracted on a cell phone and lost track of what small child is doing, by all means, step in and grab the kid. What happens next? Well, the average parent, having been jerked back to reality by the goings on, is mortified to have endangered the child and grateful that someone saved the child. There's a rush of emotion and major chemical changes in the parent's physical state as fear, relief, and anger at self wash over. Savior who rescued child could, at this point, give advice. 'Do you have any idea how close your kid came to getting killed? You should be paying attention! Don't talk on your cell phone while you're out in the City with a toddler!' Of course some people would exacerbate this by giving roughly the same advice with a lot of expletives. Parent, who is already in a heightened state of emotion might possibly be thrilled to have someone point on the obvious, but most likely will lash out with something along the lines of 'Mind your own business!' which the savior is outraged at, and the situation escalates. In the above situation there's no need for advice, it's like telling a kid 'BE CAREFUL!' right after they trip and spill the glass of milk. It's just self-righteous narration.

Isn't it better, in a situation like that, to say 'Wow! That was scary!' The parent will most likely thank you for saving the kid and berate her or himself for having been so stupid and distracted at which point you can say, 'It happens to all of us, and I'm sure it won't happen to you again any time soon!' in a friendly voice.

Most situations aren't quite so dire. Someone posts a video of their dog doing something cute and funny on youtube and the dog is clearly fat. Big deal! Did the person ask you for an assessment of their dog's weight? Why would anyone think they should comment on it? But people do things like that all the time. On one of the lists I'm on, someone recently posted a video of their dog's first ever agility trial. The poster mentioned how thrilled she was at her dog's performance in this debut, and it was a lovely run with some really good focus and the beginning of what should turn out to be good speed. One of the first comments made by another list member was about what could be done to improve the dog's weave performance and how she should have handled the teeter. It was a polite email, but really rather deflating. On another list someone happened to mention their dog's weight and was immediately hit with 'friendly' comments about how the dog was fat and what to do about it. Mind you, this was just from a mention of the dog's weight, not a picture of an obese dog, or even a comment that the owner was concerned her dog might be fat. Frankly, I'm not nearly expert enough to tell, from a number whether a dog is fat or not. Granted this dog weighed substantially more than most dogs of the breed, and maybe the dog was fat, I just don't know, and even if I did, it's none of my business on a chat list to put in my 2 cents worth when they aren't asked for.

There are other situations in which it seems far more pressing to give advice, but even then one should tread lightly. Someone has lost their temper and smacks their dog or their child. Does it really make sense to add fuel to an already tense situation by voicing usually loud and angry advice? Someone has lost their temper, that's the first step to recognize. They're not really in control of what they're doing. Maybe they don't know how else to handle the situation, maybe there's a lot going on that you don't know about. Making friendly eye contact and saying something like 'Raising kids can be so frustrating sometimes!' or 'Dogs can really seem like they're out to drive you crazy, can't they?' will go a lot further toward diffusing the situation. If the person in question is someone you know, you can follow that with 'Do you want me to take him for a few minutes to give you a break?' or 'Is there anything I can do to help?'. If you don't know the person, then it might be harder to keep the conversation productive, but anything friendly and calming you say is far more likely to have an effect than voicing anger and disgust at someone who already feels lost and out of control. Obviously the situation would be different if there were really serious abuse going on, but even then, shouting about what you think might make you feel wonderfully self-righteous, but does it really help the situation? Is it likely that someone who is beating the crap out of their kid will be swayed by hearing you say what a piece of dirt they are? Unlikely. If you've really got fortitude, walk right up to the person and say, in as calm and friendly a voice as you can 'I'm REALLY sorry to bother you, I can see you've got your own problems, but I'm lost, do you know where '----' is?' or ask what time it is, or any stupid, non-threatening question you can think of. If the situation seems really dire, call 911 first. The point is, advice unbidden is rarely useful and often does nothing but make someone feel incompetent, helpless, and/or angry.

What about situations where you're actually looking for advice? In this day and age we're lucky to have access to so many people and so many possible sources of advice. Need to know how to fix your dog's weave entries? Post the question on whatever yahoo groups you're a member of, maybe on facebook, ask your instructor, check out weave training videos, and read about possible solutions in books and magazines. Suddenly there are dozens of possible solutions suggested and often they contradict each other. Rather than randomly take whatever piece of advice 'sounds good', take the time to prioritize. Start by reasonably assessing your instructor's advice. Your instructor, after all, is the person you spent time picking because you thought he or she would be the best person to teach you and your dog. If what your instructor suggests doesn't seem to work, spend time discussing it with her, maybe there's something you didn't understand, maybe the plan is actually working but you expected faster results, maybe both you and your instructor need to re-think what you're doing and maybe you need to find a new instructor. The point is that this is the source closest to you and your dog and who you are paying for expertise, so this should be the source of the best answers most of the time.

That said, there are situations in which both you and your instructor are stumped, or maybe you don't have an instructor. Before taking advice from someone you don't know, whether from a book, a magazine, or a yahoo group, take a look at what that person's dogs are like, and, if possible, what that person's students' dogs are like. That's not so hard, at this point you can find at least some video footage online of nearly anyone who's competing with their dog. If that's not possible, then take a look at how successful the person has been in agility. Some people, even published authors, have far less experience and far less success than they'd like you to believe. Look out for people who tell you that they're really amazingly successful but they've chosen a difficult breed, and training a 'whateverdog' to get through novice is like training a Border Collie for a MACH. Even if that statement is true for that person, their advice is probably not going to be super-helpful if you've got the breed of dog they've found so difficult! One of the reasons I post a lot of video of my dogs is that if someone asks my advice, I want them to be able to know what my dogs are like, how they work, and how I handle them. I think it would be rather pompous to offer advice without any sort of proof that I actually know what I'm talking about. Watch my videos and you probably won't ask me for advice on teaching rock solid startline stays...

And while I'm ranting, a bit about teachers and instructors -

Teachers have a responsibility to teach. A short refresher on the meaning of 'teach':

Definitions of teach:

-impart skills or knowledge to; "I taught them French"; "He instructed me in building a boat"
-accustom gradually to some action or attitude; "The child is taught to obey her parents"
-an English pirate who operated in the Caribbean and off the Atlantic coast of North America (died in 1718)

We can probably skip the third definition, although I do think some supposed 'teachers' fit that definition better than the others. In case anyone is parsing words and wants to argue that instructors are different, the definition of 'instruct'.

Definitions of instruct:

-teach: impart skills or knowledge to; "I taught them French"; "He instructed me in building a boat"
-give instructions or directions for some task; "She instructed the students to work on their pronunciation"
-make aware of; "Have the students been apprised of the tuition hike?"

What's missing from the definition is any contingency clause. If you teach, it's your job to impart skill or knowledge. Not 'it's your job to impart skill or knowledge if the student is focused, quick to understand, and dedicated', it's your job to teach all your students, even the ones who don't seem to care, or are struggling to understand, or have problems you're not sure how to deal with.

It doesn't matter how expert you are in a field, if you don't understand how to impart that expertise, then you shouldn't be a teacher. We've had quite a few discussions about teachers and teaching lately around the dinner table. If you're teaching in a school or college, then your responsibility is perhaps even greater as the stakes are higher. It seems that everyone has, in their educational life, come across a teacher who berates the entire class after an exam because the bulk of the class did very poorly on the exam. If a teacher finds that the bulk of his or her class is not learning the material, then the teacher should take a long hard look at her teaching technique. Obviously, something's going really wrong.

Some students will require a lot more help than others, some students will require a different approach than others, and some will need help that is beyond what you can give, but all students should expect you to do the best you can and to find them the resources they need if you aren't capable of helping them yourself.

As agility instructors, although we have the same responsibility toward our students, the stakes aren't as high if we fail. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't teach with the same dedication and devotion, it just means that it's less of a big deal if we do fail. Still, we are in an interesting position because our students come to us because they have extra money and extra time and want to spend it doing something they think they're going to enjoy. What they find enjoyable might be different from what we do, and what they want out of class might be different from what we think they're going to want. We need to find out what each student's goals are, how much time they have to devote, and whether they're progressing at a rate they find comfortable. We also need to remember that goals change over time, so we need to keep track. We became teachers because we were good at agility, or at least better than the people who became our students, and many of us also did reasonably well from the beginning, we may well have had somewhat better coordination and timing than others when we started, and maybe we started with dogs who learned what was wanted more easily than some. That is all well and good, but it also means that many of us who are teaching agility don't actually know what it's like to be in the position some of our students are in.

I can tell someone 100 times to do this with her left hand and do that with her feet and she'll nod as though she completely understood then go off and do something completely different. It might make me feel like she's not paying attention, or that she doesn't want to try what I'm saying, or that she's dumb. It might, but it doesn't. When I do find myself thinking someone just isn't trying, I have a simple cure. I take a class in something I know nothing about, preferably something that I'm pretty sure I'll be no good at. I can hear the piano teacher explaining exactly when to put which fingers where, and how to pay attention to the rhythm and what the little dots that are called notes mean, I even think I completely understand what she's saying until the moment I put my hands on the keyboard and everything comes out wrong.

I spend a large amount of time training dogs and thinking about training dogs. My students might not. Yes they're enjoying training their dog, but it might not be the priority for them that it is for me. They're doing this for fun, I'm not going to require homework. Some people just don't have the time, others might not have the interest in doing more than what they do in class. Either way, that's their choice. I do explain to my students that if they practice correctly at home they'll progress faster, but I also point out that they will progress even if they don't practice at home, it will just take longer. It's their choice.

Recently I was complementing a student on her lovely handling of a short sequence. She had recently switched from another facility and I was still in the process of finding out what she knew and what she needed to learn. She positively beamed when I complimented her and then told me that she had never been told she'd done a good job handling before. That stopped me in my tracks. We've got no problem reminding our students of how important it is to constantly emphasize what their dogs are doing correctly, what in the world would make any of us think that it would be different for our human students?