16 months of The Mantrailing Club

And some honest things I have learnt

1. It's not everyone’s cup of tea: I get a lot of people coming to Introduction Workshops, and I can give it my utter best to try to make them ‘get’ the sport and why they should continue with their dog. Them not coming back isn’t a reflection on my teaching, it just isn’t everyone’s thing and is quite a niche thing to do with a dog. A lot of people simply don’t think about their dog’s fulfilment to that extent, or don’t want to spend 3 hours of their weekend hanging out with their dog like this. I won’t be able to convince them in one session. Nevertheless, they hopefully had a nice time, spent some quality time with their dog and got a certificate to hang on their fridge to be proud of. It wasn’t time wasted.

   
   

2. It’s never about if the dog wants to “do it”, it’s all about if the human on the other end of the lead wants to. Following scent comes naturally to dogs, we just have to find the right motivation/reward to make the mantrailing game worth doing for that individual dog. That might not happen in the first session. It quite often doesn’t happen in the first session and I make sure I spend a lot of time pointing that out. In general, working breeds get it quicker, which makes total sense, but that doesn’t mean that toy breeds shouldn’t/couldn’t do it. They just often need more time. Same with nervous/rescue dogs. So it’s whether the human has the patience and wants to invest more time into it or not. When they do, it’s 100x more rewarding when we have that moment where the dog suddenly changes and loves it. With some dogs it takes 2 sessions, with others 10. Dogs are individuals, just like us.

   
   

3. Managing human egos is a HUGE part of it. People see their dogs trail and very quickly want to go longer, harder. I spend a lot of time explaining that that will tank the dog’s motivation in the long run and the key is to step it up slowly and always keep on throwing some easier trails in to keep them guessing and motivated. We’ll have a hard time coming back from a demotivated dog that doesn’t want to do it any more. Imagine going to work one day, your boss gives you a difficult brief but you ace it, you feel great, but then every day you come back, he decides to give you a slightly more difficult challenge. What will that do to your motivation in the long run? It’s important to remind ourselves why we are mantrailing: not to prove anything, but to do something for our dogs. The dogs don’t care if the trail is 150 metres long or 500 metres long.

   
   

4. What they are doing is crazy hard and very skilled. And this is something I have to remind myself of and my clients all the time. Especially at the beginning of a dog’s mantrailing journey, the trails look super simple. It’s often a short distance in a straight line behind a tree while they learn the game. However, dogs explore the world with their nose first and we are asking them to solve the trail primarily through scent rather than relying on what they can see. So even a short, easy trail is difficult and what they are dealing with is not just following where the person has just walked, it’s working through all the scent that is in the environment and has happened there in the last few days (and that is always a lot in West London locations), so the fact that they can do this at all and want to do it is amazing.

   
   

5. Stick up for what I believe in. There are lots of different mantrailing instructors, prioritising completely different things, and therefore running their sessions in completely different ways. There are certain things I feel very strongly about, and every time you have a strong opinion about something, there will be somebody disagreeing and that’s fine, they can go elsewhere. At the end of the day, my teams are all progressing and that is proving my point and that what I am doing is right for us. What are those things that I won’t budge on now? Not rushing the dog on when trailing (the whole point of mantrailing for me is that it’s meant to be as dog-led as possible, give them a fucking break!), not repeating cues/nagging them (it does not work and just pisses them off, and who are we to know if they aren’t working the scent puzzle in that moment, or maybe they just need a second to have a break and reconsider the problem). Dogs also have excellent hearing, so when you give them the trailing cue (and they have had enough sessions to know it) and they aren’t moving, it’s either because they are thinking about which initial direction to take or they are looking for some visual cue from the handler that they have subconsciously been making without realising. Repeating the cue is never helpful and just shows how impatient humans can be!

   
   

6. Sometimes I will feel uncomfortable about what I am observing. I am instructing owners on how to trail their dogs, that’s it. However, outside of that I do witness things I am not keen on in the way people handle their dogs and that’s just part of it. I’m not there to police every aspect of how somebody trains or lives with their dog, and I am just happy that I get all these different types of dog owners and their different training approaches at my sessions, meaning I am really running something totally inclusive. I do hope that owners learn from watching each other over time, as they get a chance to observe how other people handle their dogs and might feel inspired to do better/try something different.

   
   

7. I am not the only one craving human connection and real-life experiences. That’s one of the things I love most about running sessions, but also about being a client at other mantrailing instructors’ sessions. You get to chat to other people in person, be present with your dog and just spend some hours slowing down and being in nature. Yeah, sometimes people would rather get some bits done on their phone, each to their own, but I do also see people using the time to give their dog a snuggle or have a chat with another dog owner. And I really love that. I called my business “The Mantrailing Club” because I wanted it to feel like a community you’d like to return to, and you’d miss if you weren’t able to come for a while. This is also why I offer tea/coffee facilities and a camping chair. I want people to hang out and get to know each other when it feels right.

   
   

8. People initially seem to think that what I do is quite easy. And I can’t blame them, before I became an instructor, I thought the same. You hide some people behind trees and that’s pretty much it, surely they can practise that at home. Honestly, please don’t. There is so much more to it than you initially realise and so much to consider. Unless you know a lot about scent movement in all weather conditions and in all environments, and also how dogs learn and make decisions while mantrailing, you can very easily set up trails badly without even realising it. The longer I am an instructor, the more trails I set, the better I get at setting great trails, but believe me, that takes quite a lot of thought and experience and sometimes a science degree could help too ;) It’s really easy to set trails up badly. It’s also really easy to get ahead of yourself and accidentally not set the dogs up for success. And then it’s only a question of time before things go wrong. If you want to practise something, practise target sniffing, line handling, car settling, and any type of sniffing activity (ball searches, scent work, tracking etc.) to build up their confidence in their own sniffing capabilities. Much more useful!

   
   

9. Instagram famous dogs come with nice humans. Setting up a business based on attracting humans on Instagram was quite a bold move, as I am not keen on social media myself (surprise!) and wasn’t sure if the people I was going to attract were going to be my kind of people. Yes, there are a few I wasn’t clicking with, but most people I attract and who come to me I love and I also never anticipated having so many dog trainers from all backgrounds coming to my sessions. Thinking about it, it makes total sense, who cares more about giving dogs what they need than dog trainers!? Which initially seemed daunting because it is a very competitive industry. I have learnt that if I am open minded and supportive, I very much receive the same back, and it feels much more collaborative than competitive.

   
   

10. A lot of people have no idea how to read their dog’s body language. And I don’t mean that as an insult, I just think a lot of people have never really been taught what to look for. For me, one of the great things about mantrailing is that you HAVE to learn to read your dog. You start noticing the tiny changes: when they are confident, when they are unsure, when they are distracted, stressed, uncomfortable, when they have lost the trail, when they are working something out, when they need a second, and when they know exactly where they are going. And I really hope that transfers into everyday life too. Dogs can’t talk, so it’s our job to learn how to read them!

    
    
    
    

    Even though it’s been 16 months and a looooot of sessions, I still have endless ideas of what to bring into sessions and try out. I truly believe it will never get boring, and can’t wait to see the teams progress and learn more.

    Thanks for trusting the process x