Investing in Training and Coaching: a Dog, a Bunny, and a Return on Investment
Warning: this story contains one mildly gory detail.
Our dog’s name is Fern. Fern is a Boxer, possibly a Boxer mix. My wife, Lauren, adopted Fern from a local animal shelter when Fern was about eight months old.
Fern’s previous humans had surrendered her to the shelter. It seems that she was too energetic for them and needed more attention than they could provide. They were apparently living in an apartment, kept Fern indoors a lot, and had not done much, if anything, to train her.
If you know anything about Boxers, you can imagine how much havoc an untrained, enthusiastic Boxer puppy can unleash inside the average apartment.
Fortunately, Lauren was ready for this challenge. She was a professional dog trainer for 15 years and had once worked as a training manager for a large, well-known company that offers pet training. Lauren loves to train dogs and adores Boxers. She saw that Fern was an intelligent, loving dog. She embraced the opportunity to train her.
When I met Lauren four years later, Fern still had a lot of energy. A whole lot. But she was also well trained and well behaved.
She had a hard time controlling herself when she met a new human: she would bow, spin around, and sometimes even want to jump on visitors. She made it perfectly clear that she was READY TO PLAY! But in all other ways she was an attentive and obedient dog. The time and energy that Lauren put into training her had very clearly paid off.
Fern is older now, and a bit more subdued, but she still has energy. She is still very much a Boxer.
She loves to eat and destroy paper. When we receive junk mail, we sometimes offer it to Fern. Her eyes get big. She takes it gently in her mouth, carries it off to her favorite spot on the floor, and turns it into confetti.
But she will only take paper that we give her. If you leave a pile of papers on the floor for weeks, she will not even touch one piece (yes, this has been tested in my office at home).
Rummage though a garbage can? Nope. Not this dog.
Here’s where the story gets mildly gory.
Lauren was outside in our yard yesterday with Fern, who was off leash. Fern suddenly trotted away from Lauren and went over to some bushes by the side of our house. Lauren walked over to see what caught Fern’s interest. Fern was intently sniffing a dead rabbit. Well, half of a rabbit, actually. It appeared that one of our neighborhood foxes had rabbit for dinner the night before. Fern was very interested in the leftovers.
“Leave it,” Lauren commanded.
If you know anything about dogs, you know that many of them would not comply with this order. Plenty of dogs, upon hearing Lauren’s command, would have grabbed that bunny carcass in their mouth and taken off across the yard like they had been shot out of a cannon.
What did Fern do? She left it. As soon as Lauren said “leave it,” Fern stopped sniffing and walked away from the rabbit.
Ok, the mildly gory part is over. You can open your eyes now.
The time that Lauren invested in training Fern has paid off in wonderful ways. This story could have had a messy and far less convenient ending, but avoiding that outcome isn’t even the biggest return on Lauren’s investment.
When Lauren told me this story, I could clearly see how proud she was of Fern. I could tell that Lauren was pleased by the way that Fern immediately obeyed her. We were both happy about this, and the happiness that we felt was an even greater reward than the convenience of having Fern leave the rabbit alone.
This isn’t a story about teaching Fern that one command, “leave it.” It’s about the time and effort that Lauren invested in building a relationship with Fern, developing trust, communication, and connection. It’s about the return on that investment. It’s about the joy of having a dog who is willing to listen to you instead of snatching up a tempting, tasty treat and running off with it.
Many dog trainers attribute a large portion of their success to the fact that dogs want to please humans. We have spent thousands of years selectively breeding dogs to be this way.
And what do humans want? Most of us want to be good at what we do. Dog trainers want to be good at training dogs. Salespeople want to be good at selling. Managers want to be good at managing. Executives want to be great leaders. This is especially true of the most talented, motivated, and dedicated people in an organization, the kind of people you want to have working there.
Investments in training pay off. So do investments in coaching. The return on these investments will show up in more ways than one. Organizations see measurable results from coaching, but they also see the satisfaction that people experience when they receive the kind of support that empowers them to succeed.
Contact me to learn more about the ways that coaching can support you and your team.