Your dog may be your greatest teacher!

I am firmly of the belief that we are sent the dog we need. The dog who needs to teach us.

And if your dogs all seem to misbehave in the same way, it’s because you haven’t yet learnt the lesson the first dog was trying to teach you! So you get the “same dog” over and over again.

This is not confined to dogs, by the way. We all know people who keep having failed relationships with the “same person”. And folk who persist in the same way of communicating or working which always results in the same disappointment and frustration.

Who is your best teacher?

It may have been an actual, official, teacher. Or your mother, your grandfather, the man in the corner shop, trees, a child, the sky, yourself.

And the lessons may not be the lessons you expected! You are being shown what works, and what doesn’t work.

As James Wedmore puts it,

You either get the result you want, or the lesson you need to learn.

There is no failure, in other words. You always get a result - but it may be a surprise to you . . .

Is your best teacher your dog?

Let’s look at your dog again.

If your dog is ruling the roost it’s because he’s teaching you better than you’re teaching him!

I’m perplexed when I see how people mistakenly treat their 8-week-old puppy as if he has the knowledge and wisdom of the ages.

He doesn’t!

He knows nothing!

I know they’re not nasty people - they have been misled into this way of thinking, by tv personalities who claim to be dog trainers, and by popular perception and old wives’ tales..

But expecting him to “know”, or to “behave”, is as unreasonable as expecting the same of an 8-week-old baby.

In every interaction, one participant is shaping the other.

That is to say, one is calling the shots and the other is complying. This never has to be nasty - imagine you’re dealing with that small baby. There is no assumption of right or wrong, no blame, no shame - just getting things working well, for both of you.

I never want to enforce obedience. I would far rather manage my dogs so that they choose to do what I would like them to do.

And it’s entirely possible!

Though you may need to make some mental adjustments yourself:

🐾 Ditch the concept that you are superior to your dog.

🐾 Ditch the idea that others must obey your “commands”.

🐾 Scrap the thought that failure to comply is outright rebellion and must be quashed! 

Have a look at what this Brilliant Family Dog Academy student had to say, two months into her program:

I’m delighted and love that the dogs seem to be deciding what it’s best to do, so that life is calmer and simpler, and a proper partnership. Thank you, Beverley. MC

Want to know how she achieved this?

Watch our free Workshop to get your dog to listen, and find out just how much of the learning is for you!

Once you change what you’re doing, your dog will automatically change. Exciting!

And when you reflect on all of this, you may find you could do with a bit of help and healing in order to change where you are in all aspects of your life.

Drop me a message and we can have a conversation about how you can achieve what it is you truly want in this one precious life of yours!

Is Don’t-based Training Still Prevailing with Dogs as well as Children?

This article was first published at Medium.com

Dogs are at their most creative, and learn best, during play.

The scientists have proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt. The case is closed. And that’s why you’ll find that more and more organisations who work with dogs are switching from aversive methods of training to play-based methods, in the teeth of tv personalities with outdated ideas.

Guide Dogs, Search and Rescue dogs, Seizure Alert dogs, Hearing dogs for the deaf, Assistance dogs, performance dogs in Agility, Flyball, Dancing dogs, have for quite some time been trained to do their remarkable work as part of a big game.

Now even some enlightened police dog trainers — an area where dark training traditionally took place — are joining in and teaching through Do-based training instead of Don’t-based training.

You always used to hear police dog trainers say things like, “My life is on the line — I need my dog to be bombproof,” to excuse the harsh methods often employed. Now they’re realising that their dog’s response is not just as good as previously, it’s sharper, faster, more enthusiastic, just plain better.

And who wouldn’t prefer to work through fun and games rather than bullying and punishment?

Dogs are simple and uncomplicated creatures who do what works. If jumping through hoops, figuratively speaking, is fun, and they get a great reward for doing it, and — critically — they have a choice whether to do it or not, you’ll get ready and willing compliance, with sparkling performance.

Great news for dogs! But how are children faring?

What about our Children?

So why are so many people stuck in the Dark Ages when it comes to dealing with their children?

There are, of course, plenty of educational establishments and organisations who pioneer fun methods of learning. There are schools which are beacons for the latest in learning theory.

I’m thinking more about what I see on the street, in the shops, in the park.

Many parents are still stuck in adversarial training. They lead with their chin. Everything becomes an issue. They lose sight of what they want to achieve and focus on what they take to be their child’s resistance. It’s a kind of old-fashioned manager vs employee approach — which is doomed to failure. Any small successes are hard-won and grudgingly ceded by the resentful subject.

Unless people are educated into understanding how to get the best results from people, from children, from dogs, they tend to default to the parade-ground style of barking commands and expecting instant, mindless, compliance. They can treat their nearest and dearest, as well as their pets, in ways they wouldn’t dream of treating a visitor!

Imagine saying to your house-guest: “Take a seat. Sit down. Sit! SIT! Get in that chair now!” Of course you wouldn’t do that.

But how many times do you hear similar things being barked at children, most usually expressed in the negative: Don’t, Stop, Cut it out, Put it down, Leave it alone, Not another word, Don’t touch.

No attempt is made to direct the child to what you actually want him to do!

Back to Dogs again

And this is exactly what people tend to do with their dogs. Their sweet new puppy, who just loves life, is seen as The Opposition. He must be contained, prevented, controlled, stopped.

And when this inevitably doesn’t work, the second-to-last resort is surgical intervention, in the totally mistaken belief that this will somehow render their dog acquiescent and malleable.

The last resort is, of course, off-loading the troublesome hound to the nearest shelter.

Who’s Watching?

A lot of this is a result of social pressure. The shouter feels the need to appear in charge — of his flock, his family, his employees, his dog.

Forgetting that anyone else is watching, and just focussing on the interaction between you and your child or dog - all the time keeping your eyes on what outcome you are actually looking for - can do wonders to the relationship.

The scientists are beavering away to prove, over and over again, how choice-based training gets the quickest results. Let’s listen to them and apply it in our own personal laboratory.

Let’s collectively move from “Don’t” to “Do”.

Is your dog or your little puppy throwing up more challenges than you anticipated? Watch our free Workshop and find how to change things fast!

Puppies will be puppies!

Puppies are all much of a muchness - cute, exploring, shy, cuddly, quickly tired . . . They have needs, and the biggest need they have is to learn how to fit into our weird human world.

And yet people get a new puppy and think something is wrong when their puppy

• Doesn’t sleep all night

• Explores everything by mouth

• Doesn’t know where or when to pee

• Thinks the children are other puppies

And then they write to me.

Either they think they’re doing something wrong, or - more often - they think there’s something fundamentally wrong with their puppy.

Learn just how your puppy's mind works, and what you can expect, in our free e-course

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And they want their dream of a cute cuddly puppy back!

There’s a high chance that if they’re struggling with one or other aspect of puppy care (it’s usually sleep, nipping, or housetraining) their puppy is behaving totally normally. But they may need to adjust their expectations and understanding of how the doggy brain works in order to restore harmony in their home!

Now I’m glad they find Brilliant Family Dog and they write to me and not to any of the forceful “trainers” out there, which are legion. I’m always free with advice to help them get back on track with their new charge (I’d much rather they asked and found the answer, rather than struggle on with an unhappy household). And the first thing I remind them is that their puppy is a BABY.

But really, where did common sense go?

Common sense

• Is it not common sense to do a bit of research before inviting a baby from another species to share your home?

• Is it not common sense to learn what changes you need to make to your current habits in order to have this work?

• Is it not common sense to find out what puppies are like so that you can have realistic expectations?

• And surely common sense decrees that if adults have to learn this new stuff, your children also need help to understand how to co-exist with this new stranger.

I’m willing to bet that when these parents first had their children they got masses of advice, loads of equipment, and most certainly didn’t leave their offspring loose in the house without supervision, with cats and dogs wandering around behaving species-inappropriately with them!

Expecting a puppy who’s only been on the planet a matter of weeks to fit into a new and totally foreign regime without any guidance and help would be equally crazy, and to me unreasonable and unthinkable.

The way forward

So if you’ve arrived here looking for help because your puppy isn’t measuring up to your expectations - you’re most welcome! Please do look around and find the help you need. Start with the SEARCH function up there in the navigation bar (that’s across the top of the page on a laptop and in the three little bars at the top on mobile).

You’ll find a huge wealth of articles here to help you with your puppy - not just giving you instructions to change your puppy’s behaviour, but plenty of guidance on changing your own behaviour! It has to be give-and-take for this to work the way you want it to.

There are free downloadable guides for many of the more popular queries, and even free courses!

This could be a good jumping-off place for you

All I ask is that you give it a try. Nothing is more depressing than taking the time to advise someone who says “We need help urgently, please reply.” And finding them coming back with the same query a few weeks later, having done nothing that was suggested.

Chances are your puppy is completely normal, nothing wrong with him at all. But you may be focussing on the wrong things . . .

Go and check those resources I’ve linked!

Are you the right owner for this puppy?

Oh, and if you really expect your puppy to lie in his basket all day ready to be got out and shown off when you feel like it; to be able to tell the difference between a toy you’ve given him and one that he finds as he wanders about free-range (your phone, your remote, your glasses / shoes / book, the computer cables); to adopt new sleeping patterns with no help; to know how to play with people with skin like tissue paper and no protective fur; or even to know in advance when they need to pee - then perhaps you need to re-think the whole idea of inviting a dog into your home.

When you are ready will be time enough to choose a puppy.

Start here with our free ecourse to show you how your new dog's mind actually works!

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