So, one day last year, I go to class and some young friends see me going in and stop by to say hey. Then class starts. I happened to ask the instructor how long she has been training dogs (I have been doing it as a serious hobby for about 22 years) and she says "4 months". OK, no problem, I can learn something from anyone and she seems pretty confident in her handling of the class, so OK, whatever, I mean I am not totally impressed with her experience because she only seems to have one dog training experience story in her bag, but it's all good I guess – even though she doesn't have a great ability to read the dog and where he is at and figure out just how much training Jack and I have already done and wants to see if she can lure Jack into a sit when he obviously knows both the hand signal and verbal command (not to mention play dead and roll over), but so, that's OK, nobody else in class has a clue about training and she is definitely the expert.
I happened to see my young friend again later in the afternoon and she said, "Hey, I used to go to school with that girl in your puppy class. Yeah, the one in the PETsMART shirt. She's a year older than me."
Oh, the trainer is 17 years old! I get it. I had heard that PETsMART used a lot of graduates from a year long program. I don't think this one is a graduate yet, but maybe she is. But, again, it's OK. I am not knocking her or PETsMART – in fact, knowing that she is 17 gives me a lot of respect for how well she handles the class. She is a very competent young woman; I'm just a little surprised. No wonder she really had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned wanting to learn pure clicker training.
