CAVEMAN AND BEAST

Over the past few thousands of years, dogs and humans have evolved together to live in harmony by fulfilling needs in each other. Dogs figured out that we needed someone to alert us to approaching danger, someone to hunt with us, and someone to fight by our side when we faced our enemies. Humans figured out that dogs needed food, a social structure (family) to belong, and shelter from the elements. In my opinion, it is the most beautiful and intimate symbiotic relationship between two species. But here’s the hitch, in order for this partnership to work smoothly both parties need to speak the same language of rules, boundaries, expectations and accountability and be 100% invested in each other's success.

Take ‘the bratty dog’ for example. ‘The bratty dog’ is the dog who demands what he wants by pulling, jumping, biting, and growling. The dog didn’t plan to be a brat… his human didn’t plan to encourage the dog to be a brat, but never the less, we have a bratty dog and a frustrated human. We simply don’t encounter life and death situations in day to day life anymore that force us to work on our relationship with our dog. If you don’t train your dog today you’re still going to eat supper and you’re still going to have a safe place to sleep tonight. So it’s become very easy NOT to train your dog… (generally) there are no life and death consequence.

But what I’d like you to consider is this… what if you DID work on your relationship and train your dog as if both your lives literally depended on it? Now I’m not talking about taking 3 days off to go spear hunting a Mastodon… what I mean by ‘work’ is devoting 15 minutes a day to practice obedience or taking your dog on a daily structured leash walk. How much better would you be as a leader? How much better would your dog be as a partner? How many dogs would stay in their homes and out of shelters? It is truly remarkable how much change humans and dogs can accomplish 15 minutes at a time! Happy training my friends!!!!