One question I like to ask people – “If you and your dog changed places and you could keep your human knowledge – would you want the relationship you have with the dog?” Would you be happy living the life your dog has? If the answer is “no”, then you need to change – not the dog.
People tend to want a “trained” dog, they don’t understand what it is but it’s what they’ve been pushed to expect. People call me, “I need to train my dog”. Ok, train for what? “I don’t know, my dog needs training”. As a dog owner, do you really want a highly trained dog – or a family dog that you can take anywhere and it won’t try to eat Joe Public. Realistic goals aren’t really easy this day in age, but sit down and think about it. Many owners confess that they want to be able to go to a dog park, but firmly believe they never will achieve it. They defeat themselves out of the gate because “training”.
Monty is the dog that most people want, but they have no idea how to achieve it. To me, that’s a failing in the dog training systems today. Training implies “teaching” the animal something it doesn’t know — without taking into consideration what the dog does know.
Dogs will sit, down, roll over etc by default – training should teach them to do it on command. But yet, dogs will do this for the owner without commands – simply by reading your body language. I don’t need to give Monty a sit command, just a look or a snap of the fingers gets him to plant his bum on the floor. It’s like there is a telepathic link.
Monty is the outcome of a solid relationship, not training – I haven’t put any formal training into him. Just understanding, listening to him. learning from him etc. He gets all the respect and trust that any of my human friends get – he’s earned it. I’ve worked hard to earn his trust and respect and to that end, we communicate in ways that I still can’t understand. When you start learning from your dog, now you’re working with the dog in front of you.
You can choose to “train” the dog, or choose to work with the dog in front of you. People spend far too much time trying to get a dog to see things the human way – and not enough time wading into the animal kingdom so to speak – trying to understand the animal they have and how to communicate with it.
Robert Hynes Dog Training
Serving Edmonton, Alberta and surrounding areas.
admin@roberthynesdogtraining.com