Training today is a mess…

Trainers have tossed common sense in the garbage and are replacing it with protocols – the dog has
become a protocol. The dog has been removed from the animal kingdom and placed somewhere else to
justify what we do to them. It’s not animal behaviour anymore, it’s dog behaviour. “Mans best friend” –
whatever happened to that? We need to get back to it.

Think about it, trainers use protocols and tools on dogs that don’t work on other animals – and they
don’t work that well with dogs either. Much of dog training today is legally sanctioned abuse – and that
covers all spectrum’s of dog training.

Understand something and it should be common sense. Humans need humans to teach us to be human.
Dogs need dogs in order to learn how to be “dog”. It’s not that hard.

If a dog is not socialized – and it’s showing aggression or reactivity – that makes the dog anti-social.
Lets call it what it is – anti-social behavior. Today, people tend to create an anti-social dog without
even realizing it based on bad training advice – lets discuss.

Puppies are being taken away far too early, 6 to 8 weeks, the mother hasn’t had the chance to finish
raising the pups. She doesn’t get the chance to housebreak them or socialize them. We used to keep
puppies til the 14+ week mark and by then, mom had done her job, pups were really ready to go. The
puppies chased her outside to learn to use it as a bathroom. When you had a litter of puppies,
guaranteed we had kids coming over and many brought dogs so socialization wasn’t a big deal.
The months following a puppy being rehomed are the most important months of their lives. When they
should be outside learning about the world and making it “not a big deal”, they are being kept at home
due to fear for various reasons.

Heaven forbid you take your puppy to a dog park, it’s not vaxxed! Most trainers are terrified of dog
parks, and they recommend against them. It does my heart good to actually go to a dog park and see
young puppies running around just learning how to be social and learning how to be a dog. They aren’t
getting sick, they aren’t dying – they are building up their immune system like our dogs did when
vaccines didn’t exist for dogs. They won’t have behavioural issues either because they are learning to
be a “dog” right out of the gate – they are learning to be social with other dogs.

Now, lock it in a crate due to potty training. What some trainers and owners recommend is cruel. Buy
the smallest crate you can so the puppy can’t even turn around. They can only stand up and lay down.
At what point do people stand back and think – “is this the right thing to do”? This is a living, thinking,
intelligent animal and we are stuffing it in a crate cause we are frustrated. And we wonder why we have
problems. Top that off with a dog that’s being fed low quality food full of carbs and starches – the dog
can’t burn it off and we wonder why they go crazy?

You see, at some point, you need to take that pup out in the real world and try to socialize it. It’s
typically going to be more difficult cause now the puppy is anti-social, it’s afraid – and the human has
been made to be afraid of what the puppy can do to the public. Realize, common sense is out the
window and it’s been replaced by protocols and fear – that that is going to socialize a dog?

This insanity needs to stop.