Learning Never Ends

This week I'm at the Joint Symposium for Working K9's in Atlanta, GA. It's a week of great presentations, research, and networking. Seeing old friends and making new ones!

There are a lot of opinions out there (ie the fetch article that made the rounds a couple of weeks ago) and it's important to always approach any information with a critical thinking. Be open to what is challenging your current ideas, pull them out like a wonderful new stone, evaluate the information and see if it is something you want to incorporate.

I have many pretty nuggets of interest sitting on my mental shelf. As I read research articles, attend training and conferences, scroll through social media, and talk to other trainers, some of those nuggets are shaped into wonderful pieces of knowledge that I can use in my training and teaching. I also have more advanced trainers and mentors that I ask to help me examine those pretty little nuggets. Some of those nuggets end up back on a shelf for further examination and some even end up smashed because they didn't withstand the pressure of scrutiny.

Learning a craft, which dog training is, takes a while. I've been at this for about 25 years. I'm still learning new things every day not only about dogs, but about the wonderful world of applied behavior analysis.

Always be curious.

Robin

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K9Sensus Detection Dog Academy is open for enrollment for our year long 2026 session. Please submit your application soon! www.k9sensus.org/ddta