The First Trick of the Trade is to Learn the Trade

For about $500, any putative dog trainer can own all the equipment ever used to train a dog.

Name one other industry where you can set yourself up, without college, without a two-year apprenticeship, and for less than a set of crappy tires?  

And yet, how many of us know folks who train dogs who have never actually bought a modern ecollar to train with it, or even experiment with it?  

How many express horror at a prong collar, but do not own one, and do not know how to fit one?

If someone has not bothered to get the basic equipment to at least try it out, are they really serious about being a full service dog trainer?

How can they show folks the best way to solve problems if they know only one way or one task or one breed?

People ask me all the time to show them the "tricks of the trade" about various things I know something about.

The first trick, I tell them, is to learn the trade.  

Equipment is part of trade craft. It's not all of it, or even most of it, but it's a simple, physical, visible test of seriousness.  

If you won't drop $500 on a set of basic equipment for yourself, why should anyone drop $500 on you to train their dog?  Why should anyone waste their time and money investing in you, if you won't invest in yourself?

Yes, 98 percent of the tools we use in carpentry boil down to a Skil Saw and a hammer, a pencil and a square.  I can build a house with almost nothing else.  But do I also have 7 other saws, as well as chisels, planes, sanders, calipers, screw guns, nail guns, and caulking tools?  You bet.  Because if I am being hired as a carpenter, it's not for 98 percent of the job -- it's for 100 percent.