Definitions and puppy love

Puppy-sitting this week has brought to mind the various interventions that coaching gets mixed up with. Training, mentoring, coaching, psychotherapy and counselling are all helping professions but they are in different places on the directive scale and have different approaches and goals.

Psychotherapy and counselling address deep emotional and psychological issues, often causing distress, and usually explore the past. At 11 weeks old, Alice barely has a past so her behaviour must be instinctive, therefore counselling isn’t required.

Mentoring is show and tell, usually career-related, where a more experienced team member guides and advises another. There’s an element of show and tell in that when training a puppy, it’s important to behave how the mother might so a sharp noise or movement when Alice bites is meant to mimic mum’s response and give Alice a cue to stop doing it! That said, she isn’t yet ready to rationalise and hear the reasons as to why we try to mimic her mother’s response.

Coaching is very future focused in that it’s designed to help people achieve specific goals through insightful questioning and encouraging accountability. I don’t think Alice is ready for this either, however, training focuses on imparting specific skills and knowledge. I need (I really do) Alice to stop biting and jumping up so have to train her by employing the same techniques dog owners across the land employ. Very valuable at this stage in her development, maybe she’ll need a 1:1 tailored approach to personal development at a later stage.

Butter wouldn’t melt - Alice needs training, not coaching, counselling or mentoring!