Have you ever asked yourself what you really mean when you talk about mentoring? What is mentoring? What is it not? How can mentoring best be applied to assure the ongoing welfare of our breed, the protection of the Siberian Standard, and the continuing education of Siberian breeders?    Dispensing information to breeders via the InterNet is fine as far as it goes, but this electronic medium is self-limiting. Does it fulfill the requirements of “mentoring”? One of the key ingredients of the InterNet is that it allows for impersonal, and anonymous communication of information; the InterNet is anonymity in the extreme. The “mentors” one finds “out there” may, or may not be credible. One never knows for certain because many choose to remain anonymous – even if they have a Web site! Can one trust anonymous advice? Those of us who have computers and e-mail quickly learn that we cannot trust anonymous senders of e-mail attachments because they may, or may not, contain computer viruses. The advice that many dispense over the InterNet may be subject to the same “disease”. Even if the “electronic mentor” is credible, can one trust advice without knowing and actually “experiencing” this person in real life? Does anonymity foster mentoring?    This writer personally knows of a person who has advertised for someone to write articles for their personal Web site for the purpose of providing breed information to surfers of the InterNet who want to buy a puppy. Apparently, they want to “anonymously” appear knowledgeable. But is this “mentoring”? Have they, themselves, been “mentored”?    This writer believes that effective mentoring is absolutely dependent upon a mutual, dynamic, personal relationship (partnership) between two parties – one agreeing to learn, and the other agreeing to teach – who share the common interest and concern for the breed. This definition precludes the InterNet from being a truly effective mentoring relationship because, by definition, anonymity also precludes the degree of INTERpersonal involvement (mutual reciprocity) required of a “personal relationship”.    What IS mentoring? “Mentoring” - from the Greek word meaning “enduring” - is defined as a sustained relationship between an inexperienced “youthful” person and a “matured” person who has demonstrated knowledge, skill, and success. Through continued involvement, the mentor offers support, guidance, and assistance to the less experienced person. Mentoring is the process in which successful individuals go out of their way to help others establish goals and develop the skills to achieve them. Mentoring is a “partnership” in every sense of the word.    A “mentor” is an informed journeyman who provides the less experienced apprentice with support, counsel, friendship, reinforcement and a constructive example. Mentors are attentive listeners, people who care, people who want to help someone with lesser experience bring out their own innate strengths, and to foster new ones. A mentoring relationship can take many forms. In the best mentoring relationship, the knowledgeable person with experience helps the less experienced define and achieve his own goals and skills.    Two basic forms of mentoring are “natural mentoring” and “planned mentoring.” The former occurs through friendship, collegiality, formal teaching, coaching, and counseling. In contrast, “planned mentoring” occurs through a structured relationship in which mentor and mentee (apprentice) are selected and matched through choice.    Typically, in the dog fancy, mentors choose their apprentices by means of puppy sales, but there is nothing inappropriate or unseemly about a person actively and purposefully selecting a mentor who is other than this breeder. There is nothing “improper” with an apprentice initiating the mentoring relationship which they feel will best advance their knowledge and skills. In fact, it is entirely appropriate to actively seek out those people who are successful in breeding, showing, grooming, handling, and whose background, skills and experience match their own developmental needs. Most people who truly want to learn realize that effective mentoring: a) Is a PERSONAL relationship that focuses on the NEEDS of the MENTEE; and b) Fosters a caring and supportive relationship; and c) Encourages all apprentices to develop to their FULLEST potential; and d) Is a strategy to develop active community partnerships which will nurture the breed.    In the process of developing this writing, I was sent the following e-mail: "My Vizsla mentor is not even in my country...she lives on the east coast of the US and we live in the west of Canada but the internet and email has made us very close. The year we will meet for the first time at the specialty and we will show together and sit side by side to view the dogs. I know I am very, very lucky to have such a chance."    When a high school student living in Long Island, New York, receives an accredited mentor, does his mentor reside in Los Angeles, California? No. Why not? Because certainly one of the underlying principles of effective mentoring is the close, personal, relationship, and dynamic interaction between the mentor and the mentee. The very definition of “close” is: “near, nearby, next to, neighboring”. This degree of personal “closeness” cannot be achieved over these vast physical distances, not even via the InterNet. The above Vizsla mentee seems to understand that, even though the e-mail communication has fostered a certain “closeness”, it is the intimate “side by side” interpersonal relationship which will bring about the most meaningful mentoring.    It has been concluded that positive effects are much more likely when one-on-one mentoring has been strongly implemented. (McPartland, James M. and Saundra M. Nettles. "Using Community Adults as Advocates or Mentors for At-Risk Middle School Students: A Two-Year Evaluation of Project RAISE." American Journal of Education, 1991, 99(4), pp. 568-586.) No further validity for mentoring needs to be noted than the success of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America. N.B. that this success is based on one to one PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT, not on “virtual”, InterNet e-mails.    Here is another person asking for InterNet “mentoring”: "I recently bred my lab and having never done this before was wondering if there are particular changes in her diet that I should make. One thing I am tempted to add is a B complex vitamin (50 mg/day). Does anyone have any thoughts about this or other additions? Of course, any general comments would be well appreciated. I've looked up a number of articles but still feel very ignorant."    This anonymous person is asking for anonymous advice over the InterNet – advice which would be of more benefit, and likely also carry more weight, had it been given PRIOR to the breeding, and by someone with whom there was an ongoing personal, face-to-face mentoring relationship. One might well ask, “Why doesn’t this person go to the breeder from whom she acquired the bitch she bred?” This writer suggests that being a truly meaningful Friend, Coach, Motivator, Companion, Supporter (Cheerleader), Advisor, Advocate, and Role Model isn’t possible to acquire over the InterNet because anonymity, by definition, lacks the necessary intimacy required for fruitful mentoring.    While, in the main, mentoring occurs on a one-to-one basis, elements of mentoring may be present in group situations where, under certain circumstances, a one-to-one relationship emerges as an important vehicle for growth and development for mentees. The one-to-one PERSONAL relationship is the key to effectiveness in mentoring. It is relatively easy to give advice or express opinions. It's much harder to find someone who will suspend his own judgment and really listen. Effective listening is impossible over the InterNet. Mentors often help simply by listening, asking thoughtful questions, and giving participants an opportunity to explore their own thoughts with a minimum of interference. When people feel accepted, they are more likely to ask for, and respond to, good ideas. Good mentors recognize that relationships take time to develop and that communication is a two-way street. They are willing to take time to get to know their apprentice, to learn new things that are important to their partners (mentoring is a “relationship”), and even to be changed by their relationship. Effective mentors are willing and able to themselves learn by teaching.    Have you ever had someone stand up for you when you needed it? Or speak on your behalf? That's what advocacy is all about. But remember -- in order to be an effective advocate, you have to really know the person for whom you are an advocate. You will have to create opportunities to get to know your understudy as a person. The more you learn about your apprentice, the stronger advocate you will be!    Today, unlike in days past, Siberians are shipped all over the world. It is not uncommon to find the Siberian, an Arctic breed, suitable in temperatures to minus 70 degrees below zero, being sent to live in climates where temperatures soar to 110 degrees above zero. Breeders are shipping their dogs thousands of miles away from their watchful eye. This presents at least two sets of problems: 1) the breeders can not regularly check on the welfare of the animals which they have caused to come into existence, and 2) the buyer, often a novice, is deprived of the opportunity of the hands-on mentoring of the breeder.    Rescue has reached a decibel level which is louder than deafening. Why is there a need for rescue? It seems to this writer that, if breeders are truly informed about the buyers to whom they entrust their dogs, they will foster (mentor), within that association, the personal relationship and agreement that any unwanted dog will automatically, and immediately, come back to the breeder who caused it to have life. And, no, the reason for rescue cannot be attributed only to the backyard breeder. There are well-known breeders personally know to this writer who do not deal in an ethical fashion with the buyers of their stock. They have been much more interested in taking the buyer’s money, and then they immediately assume the posture that they are immune from the matter from the very moment the buyer’s check is deposited in the bank.    Mentoring is not a one way street: MENTORING CAN HELP THE MENTOR TO: Acquire new skills, open doors, increase confidence, widen his perspective, avoid many errors, otherwise enhance his career and life, and help to secure the welfare of his breed. The best way to test learning is to teach what one knows! The best way to cement one’s own acquired knowledge is to teach it! Unlike InterNet “mentoring”, the personal relationship created by proper mentoring is self-insurance for the breeder that a dog of his breeding will be returned to him if it becomes unwanted in its new home. Proper mentoring will eliminate the need for rescue.    As a mentor, one brings a wide range of life experiences to the relationship; as a result, the mentor can be a great source of reliable advice and information. Even with this depth of available information, from time to time the apprentice may need a second opinion, or a different perspective from that which his primary mentor is able to provide. The wise, and experienced mentor both sees and accepts this necessity without becoming defensive, or mean-spirited. He will, therefore, help the tyro gain a new perspective by using his influence to facilitate a more broad based, even diverse, pool of knowledge. He will recall what he did in his own “youth” in the fancy. How did it work out for him?    The prudent mentor will keep in mind that he and his apprentice, even though they share the same overall interests, are distinctly different people. The maturing tyro will develop his own values, which may be different from those of his “master”, and these differences may lead the two to different ideas about what to do in a given difficult situation. These differences notwithstanding, the mentor’s role is to continue to offer insight, advice and suggestions. It is the mentor’s continued role to help his understudy to evaluate the options, considering all of the available input, and then make what they consider to be the best decision.    The final ingredient to the mentoring process is commitment. Helping one’s understudy to grow brings tremendous rewards to both parties, but it doesn't occur overnight. At times, both parties need to remind one another that the greater good serves the breed which they both hold dear. At times, the wise mentor will consciously introspectively reflect upon his own mentoring process, in order to avoid, for his understudy, those mistakes he experienced.    We've all been asked that ominous question at some point in our career: "May I give you some feedback?" Usually the asker isn't seeking permission to give his praise! Our typical response is to tense up and brace ourselves. Since we know how that feels, we also avoid giving corrective feedback in public. In these “tender” times, impersonal communication can be very much understood. Without the commitment of the “side by side” interpersonal relationship, the “feedback” may well be misunderstood; this miscommunication may even occur in a friendly and positive partnership, but without the trust which only the “side by side” can foster, the chances of “blowing” the relationship is much increased.    It needs to be acknowledged that, as a responsible mentor, there will be times when you need to give corrective feedback to your apprentice. It's always better (softer) coming from you (particularly if you've built a respectful relationship with your understudy) than from “outsiders”. Your apprentice needs feedback so that he knows how to improve and grow. Corrective feedback, although often difficult to give as well as receive, can be tremendously helpful in cementing the mentor/apprentice partnership.    All constructive mentoring relationships, just as the healthy parent/child relationship, needs to be founded on the fundamental principle that the sole purpose is to fortify the apprentice with sufficient knowledge and self-esteem to adequately prepare him to go out on his own, to apply, AND TEST, what he has learned at “the feet of the master” ON HIS OWN, and to grow in strength and stature, ON HIS OWN, so that he will, himself, be a motivated and learned mentor. Constructive mentoring is a dynamic process; it is not a cult. In constructive mentoring, the separation between the mentor and the apprentice is, from the very onset, its fundamental goal. Constructive mentoring will continually foster within it the all-important goal of mature separation. The “mentor” who fosters the dependency of his pupil seeks only a self-serving, “groupie”, superior/subordinate cult which ultimately betrays his own insecurity, and neurosis. It strikes this writer that there is also a strong undertow of meanness, intolerance, nastiness, and downright viciousness within the fancy; perhaps this is due to the intense competition in which we all agree to participate in the ring (which can be discussed in a later writing), but, much as our breed does when in harness, we must realize that we all need to pull together to bring our sled of serum (the very breed itself) to the future people of Nome (those who will succeed us).    CONSIDER THIS: No matter how much one knows, he has no monopoly on Knowledge. No matter how inept another appears, he carries no monopoly on incompetence. For the welfare of our beloved breed, 1) take the time to get involved in a personal mentoring relationship which will serve an apprentice; and 2) show consideration for yourself and for the breed by pausing to actively seek an involved personal mentoring relationship for YOURSELF (where YOU are the one seeking sagacious knowledge) from someone in your area for whom you have respect. Do not our dogs set a worthy example for us in this regard?   ### -- The above article is published in The Siberian Quarterly: Hoflin Publishing, Wheat Ridge, Colorado, Spring 2002 Issue, pp. 42, 44, 46.

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