Sometimes the Best Thing I Can Do as a Trainer Is Nothing
Sometimes the best thing I can do as a trainer is nothing.
This is something I talk about a lot in training. As humans, we have a really strong tendency to want to help our dogs. The second they hesitate or make a mistake, we want to repeat the cue, point them in the right direction, lure them, encourage them, or somehow make the answer more obvious. But sometimes they already have enough information. They just need a minute to figure it out.
There’s a difference between letting a dog work through a problem and leaving a dog genuinely confused or stranded. I might intentionally ask a dog to work through something they don’t completely understand yet. Trying things, making choices, and connecting the dots is part of learning. But I also need to make sure I’ve set the dog up to be successful and that the problem I’m asking them to solve is appropriate for where they are in their training. If I’ve done that and the dog has enough information to work toward the answer, I’m often going to give them some space to do exactly that. Because I don’t just want to teach dogs the answers. I want to teach them how to think.
You can see this in something as simple as basic obedience. If a dog knows a behavior but doesn’t immediately give it to me, I don’t necessarily need to jump in and fix it for them. Sometimes giving them a second to process, make a choice, and find the correct answer produces a dog who understands the behavior much more deeply than one who has learned to wait for me to guide them through every step.
This is also something I pay a lot of attention to in detection work. I can’t possibly know exactly where odor is moving at every moment, and I don’t want a dog who searches by waiting for me to point out where they should look. The dog has information that I don’t have. Their job requires them to independently work through a problem, make decisions, and persist when the answer isn’t immediately obvious. If I’ve spent all of their training stepping in every time things get difficult, I’ve taught them exactly the opposite.
And the benefits go beyond the individual behavior we’re working on. Giving dogs opportunities to figure things out also builds confidence and resilience. They learn that they can try something, make a choice, offer a behavior, and see what happens. They learn that being wrong isn’t catastrophic and that a little frustration or uncertainty doesn’t mean they need to shut down or quit. Most importantly, they start to trust their own ability to make choices and work through challenges.
Over time, that changes the dog. A dog who has had opportunities to problem-solve doesn’t need as much help the next time. They start offering solutions sooner. They persist longer. They’re more willing to try. They become more confident about making choices because they have a history of working through uncertainty and coming out the other side successfully.
That ability to think and work through problems matters no matter what I’m training for, whether that’s everyday life, dog sports, or operational work. I don’t want to develop a dog who has simply memorized a collection of correct answers. I want a dog who knows how to learn, can work through something they haven’t seen before, recover when something doesn’t go as expected, and is confident enough to keep trying.
That doesn’t mean I never help my dogs. Good training isn’t standing there indefinitely while a dog gets increasingly frustrated or confused. Sometimes I need to make the problem easier, give more information, change the environment, or recognize that I haven’t actually prepared the dog for what I’m asking. The skill is learning when the dog needs help and when the dog simply needs time.
I don’t want my dogs constantly looking to me to solve every problem for them. I want dogs who are comfortable thinking, experimenting, making choices, and working their way toward an answer.
Sometimes that means I need to be a really active trainer. And sometimes it means I need to shut up and let the dog think.
