IS YOUR DOG BAD BECAUSE IT FAILED A DOG TRAINING CLASS?
I have had many
clients whose dogs where kicked out of dog training classes by dog trainers. The trainer told them that their dog was
hopeless and bad. Some of them where even told that the dog should be put on drugs
or euthanized.
So is it true, is the
dog bad?
The answer is no, the
dog is not bad!
Because I have had no problem working and assisting the
dog and its people. The difference is that I understood the dog - I did not try
to communicate with the dog by only using my voice and I did not try to use
dominance and / or treats in place of proper communication. I also do not think
of myself as a ‘Trainer of Dogs’. I think of myself as one who coaches and
mentors dogs, trains the dog’s humans and in exchange I learn from every dog I
work with. I see working with a dog as a position where I must give and
engender respect and understanding, not arrogance and conceit.
Ask the trainer how
they learned their trade. If the answer is I learned from ‘so and so’ or I took
this course, and that is the end of their explanation, I think you have your first indication of a problem. To understand
a dogs you must also learn from dogs - not just learn from people.
I understand that I
must work from my heart and soul, and rely on my instinct, intuition and common
sense, just like a dog does.
To effectively
understand and work with a dog you must first have done the hard work of
understanding and being aware of yourself, your emotions and how you communicate.
How can you work with
a dog...
A - If you do not understand all the ways in which a human communicates and how
a dog communicates?
B - If you do not understand anything of the real psychology of a dog?
C - If you have never taken the time to see and listen to what a dog is
teaching you?
How can you work with
the dog’s human...
If you do not consider and respect the psychology of the
individual person?
Most trainers employ 'obedience training’…teaching a dog to repetitively respond to basic
commands such as "sit", "down", "come", and
"stay" and so on. Teaching a dog to be a well adjusted social member
of society is no different than teaching a child - when one fails to teach in a
holistic, empathetic and understanding manner much can be lost and much can go
wrong.
A trainer who has not
learned to understand themselves first cannot hope to train another person let
alone a dog. They can however cause great havoc and trauma. If the trainer
fears large dogs, does not know how to properly communicate to an overly energetic
dog, a nervous or fearful reactive dog they will make the dogs state of being
worse. Instead of having the capability to identify the issue the exacerbate it
and then say the dog is bad.
For example most aggression in dogs occurs due to lack of
leadership in the dog’s life - in the absence of proper direction a dog may
become anxious, insecure and fearful.
If dogs were pre-wired to be aggressive rather than social there would be very
few dogs left standing. A dog in its natural state is a social being, a pack
animal with the potential inherent to get along with others. There are
very few dogs born with 'bad wiring’. When a dog goes bad it is almost always a
human who is responsible for the bad behaviour.
When
puppies are young they learn their social skills from the adult dogs in their dog family. Now, as long as the adult dogs’
natural social state has not been negatively disrupted by human influence the
adult dogs will teach their young how to get along without being aggressive.
Teaching a dog is
really about taking over that socialization role - teaching, coaching mentoring
- not training. I use the term ‘coaching and mentoring’ as it speaks more of
commitment to imparting learning and understanding rather than habit, working
towards creating a relationship/partnership, a foundation of knowledge based on
learning, sharing and mutual respect.
Obedience implies
compliance with the direction or command given by the ‘handler’. But a dog can
easily learn to do all of these things and still not be ‘obedient’. 'A dog can
go through Obedience training and not be obedient'. Why? Because the dog has
simply been taught a repetitive action and little more. Just as you can teach a
child to sit, every time you tell the child to do so, does not mean that the
child will be a well adjusted, social being.
And I am sorry, but
if the trainer sought to teach you to train your dog using only treats - the
trainer has set you and your dog up for ultimate failure. Dogs do not teach
other social skills using treats. Dogs teach each other social skills using
calm assertive communication - body language and state-of-being. Why would you
try to teach a dog using only treats? Why would you not seek to teach a dog
using the same methods dogs use to teach each other? Would you teach your child
to be a well rounded human being by only using treats?
If the right
communication method is used, even a very young puppy will learn when it is
being requested (without-voice) to sit. The early you start the earlier the
positive gain begins an exponential build-up of understanding. The more you
time you invest in mentoring using a complete kit-of-tools the more aware, the
more attentive & sensitive your dog becomes to paying attention to you.
This when coupled with your own ability to read & understand your puppy
becomes a powerful tool to build an amazing partnership.
Dogs are intelligent,
sensitive beings and need to be treated as such. Trainers who fail to recognize
this, trainers who fail to train themselves to communicate properly set dogs
and their people up for failure. They traumatize the human and the dog and can
cause real psychological trauma. Yet I have no trouble working with the same dog
and it's human. So who has failed? The trainer who has not done the due
diligence of training themselves - not the dog, not it's human.
As a professional I
personally believe that when you are engaged by a client you have an ethical
and moral responsibility to take real ownership for what you are doing and understanding
you capabilities. If you do not have the skills to help the dog and its human
you should not accept the commission to do so. Working with dogs and their
people should never be just about making money and it should never be about
your own ego.
So, if a trainer has
kicked your dog out of a training class, told you your dog is bad - don’t take
what they said to heart, don’t believe that what they have said is true.
A trainer is only as
good as their own limitations. Remember, if they did not explain to you the psychology
of the situation, theirs, yours, your dog’s, if they just said your dog is vicious
or your dog is hyper, your dog does not listen those are your first keys to
understanding that the trainer does not know what they are doing. They are
looking for excuses to cover up their lack of knowledge. There is no room for arrogance
when teaching a dog or it’s human. They are a part of the problem. Your dog did
not create the behaviour and your dog is not hopeless.
A client that I worked with in the fall was told by two different ‘reputable’ trainers, one dog behaviourist and
one dog care facility to put the dog on drugs and/or euthanize their dog. They
called me in to help - absolutely nothing wrong with the dog other then the
fact that not one of the professionals they had gone to bothered to really observe
and understand the dog. The dog just needed some simple understandable direction
to understand how to relax.
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Article and graphics by Karen Rosenfeld.
