내가 "반려견 훈련"이라고 말할 때 마음이 아픈 이유 #28

it's how can I make your life better and how, and both people did that. What an amazing relationship you would have. That's the way I like to look at my relationships with my dogs. And I, it even hurts me to say dog training. That's how I approach my relationships is, if there's something I would like you to do, for example, I love the sport of dog agility, then how can I make every moment you spend training dog agility to be the best moment of your life? And sadly, that isn't always the way people approach dog training. If you have the mindset that this is a relationship, then every single decision you make is going to be on how do I make that relationship better? Now people would say, we need to use a shock collar on our dog because it's kinder. It is what having a good relationship would be all about. I would beg to differ, and I'm not here to bash tools that other people use because that's their journey. And at their point in their dog training, that's what they feel is right. Nobody makes decisions for their dog because they think that this is just going to be fun. I'm just going to do, do this and cause my dog pain because it's going to be fun. Every person is sitting exactly in the same place I am, and they want to make the best decisions for their dog. So, I want everybody listening to this podcast, know everybody is welcome no matter what path you are on right now, no matter how you choose to train your dog. My goal is if I can inspire you and just look at the way that I train, even if it is just for one area, maybe it's just to teach your dog to walk on leash or teach your dog to retrieve that you're going to look at a different way. I remember many years ago, my late husband was a very popular obedience judge and he would travel all over the world, quite honestly, judging obedience competitions. Occasionally I would go with him. I remember being in Syracuse, New York, and we were at a dinner with obedience judges because they have these big dinners at the end of the day. The discussion went around to training, which for me just turned to drinking heavily because I was avoiding the discussions of training. Because I know back then we're talking 30 years ago, my views were in a hundred percent conflict to the norm of way people thought dogs needed to be trained. The discussion at the table that night went around to how amazing their puppy classes have been since they've put shock collars on the eight-week-old puppies as they come in the class. They can teach so much more so fast. And if, I mean, obviously I

had to bite my tongue, which I wasn't great at, but I did because of my relationship with John. That was my most important thing at that time. And so, if no matter what path you're on, if there's something you can glean from this podcast, everybody is welcome. Everybody is welcome. And I love to hear contrarian points of view on the way that you look at the raising and relating to dogs. So, back to our dogs or relationship. I did a video, I think it was in 2004. I was asked to be a keynote speaker. It was a national championship event for a dog agility. And so, I put together what I think was downloads from God himself presentation about how I look at my life with dogs, that it is a journey and that I am becoming a better person because as I train my dog, give them information on how to be inspired by in the direction I want them to be, they actually are training me. And that's what a great relationship is about is that you learn from each other. It isn't a one-way street. I am teaching you this and then my job is done. No, that's one of the most amazing part of growing this relationship with your dog about experimenting and enriching their life is you get feedback. They give you direct feedback in their behavior. Okay. So, let's take a example of going for a walk with your dog. If your goal was that dog have the most amazing life, what would that look like? What tool would you pick? Would it be a dog on a flat collar? Would it be a head halter? Would it be a harness? Would it be a pinch collar, a choke chain, a shock collar? Well, Susan, if my goal is for my dog to have amazing life, I wouldn't want them to have to be the restraint of being on a leash and collar at all. I want them to have this amazing life. Okay. So, let's just say we want the dog to choose what they want. And the dog would say, Hey, I got P-mail to read. I got to deliver some P-mail on my own. I can't have the constraint of being attached to you. That's what walking should be about. And if you asked your dog, if it was a brand new relationship, that's what they would say. Take that leash and collar off of me. But we don't. Why? Because safety. We can't walk our dog in the street and have them off leash and potentially be hit by a car, run off. So, safety is our number one priority. And that's what a good relationship is about. Creating safety first. We need to be able to control the dog's choices, whether we be in a city street or out in the country where they can run off and chase a porcupine or a skunk or a coyote or something and they're gone. So, it's control. We need to be able to control their choices.

In my last podcast, podcast number 27, I spoke about there's really three ways that we can address any challenge that we have. It is number one, we can ignore it. So, my dog wants to be off leash and there's some danger. We could ignore that and say, come on, let's have at it. And a lot of people do and suffer the consequences. Or we could manage it. That's what a leash is all about. A leash and collar is managing your dog's behavior, i.e. controlling it until you know they're going to make great choices. And then the third option is train it. And for something like walking, I prefer to train it. Now I'm not going to be stupid. My dogs are brilliant and they would walk on my side off leash, but I wouldn't take them into a busy street where there is a chance something could scare them and they would startle off into the street and be hit by a car. So, even if you have a brilliantly trained behavior, I would still recommend you use a leash and collar or harness or head halter or whatever. But at that point, it's basically just there for show. It's not going to be engaged. So, we need those leash and collars for control. You know, the word control in dogs is taboo. People are like, oh, we can't really control them. And we can't. Dogs at the end of the day, they have free will. All that we can do when our dogs make a choice we don't like is control our responses to those choices. If you let go of the thought that you can control the dog, it is freeing. If you go back to the journey, the video that I presented, and it was all about the path we are on for learning. I go back to the very first dog that I formally trained, the first two, the school that I was at. They use food in the forms of lures, but that really was to candy coat the overall presentation of dogs need to do it or else. So, the dogs were put on a choke chain and if they didn't do what we wanted, we were to give them a correction. And that is we needed to control the dog. And dogs are so brilliant that they will shrink away. They won't let their inner freak flag fly because they won't have the confidence to be themselves around you for fear of being told, ah, no correction. And so, they will shrink into this role of who you need them to be. For me, I love to see that inner freak flag in my dogs. I love to see who they are. And if who they are doesn't match with who I would like them to be, then that's where my role as relating to them, training them is inspiring them to want to go in this direction. But at the end of the day, guys, you've got to honor who that dog is and look at the strengths of that dog and use those

strengths in the way that is going to enhance your life. Again, I love the sport of dog agility. So, some of my dogs have been very great at turning tight. Where other of my dogs are, I've just not been able to get a super tight turn. And so, for those dogs, I'm going to build on the strength of, man, they are fast. So, we can turn wide fast and make up that time. All right. So, it is looking at who is your dog, allowing them to be who they are, making the conscious choice to either ignore or to manage or to train the dog training challenges. And obviously when it's something like walking on a leash, picking a collar or harness is a form of control, but picking one that ultimately supports the direction of training so that the dog does get that freedom. So, for example, if you put your dog on a halter or a harness and a flexi, and they're just like allowed to do whatever they want. And then you're saying, well, I'm kind of giving them that free will that they can go where they want and they can smell all the pee mail on our walk. Really what you're doing, you're walking with a crutch. You aren't training. You are saying to your dog, this will be the extent of the freedom in your life for the rest of your life. And I got to be honest with you, you're annoying the crap out of the rest of us who walk opposite to you and have to trip over that long line because you can't get the lock done fast enough. And you're potentially creating a really dangerous situation with that retractable long leash. Retractable leashes, I am not a big fan of. The only time I would ever use one is if I have a geriatric dog who maybe they can't hear and they can't see. And I want to give them some freedom in a park where they're not familiar with it. All right. So, look at your choices. Think of yourself, not as a dog trainer, but a dog learner. Think of yourself as not wanting to control, but wanting to relate, wanting to enhance and make that animal's life better by growing this amazing relationship together. And that amazing relationship is looking at what would be the things that your dog would put up their hand and say, Hey, I would love to be able to do this. What if they had the list of what we're going to be doing today? What would that look like? And if it doesn't match what you want, but you know, it's a beagle and my beagle just wants to put his nose down and go smelling things. Well, how are we going to get that beagle wanting to love agility? It doesn't matter what the dog's current loves are. If they have loves for anything, we can use that love

and transfer that value into love for something that you want. But it is a process that you need to be patient with. Going back to the question I asked to start this podcast, why do we have a dog? It's for companionship and to make our life better. Then there is no room in my opinion for the need for control. We want to inspire the dog to self-regulate, to do what we want because of the transfer of value that we've put in for the things that are important to us. Today's podcast was all about you thinking why you have a dog. What a great life looks like to your dog and how you can inspire them through the choices they make and paralleling the choices you want them to make. We got many more ways to explain to you how that's going to happen here on Shaped by Dog, but I'd love to read your comments. What does this mean to you? And are there things that you are currently find yourself that you are managing or ignoring and you'd really like to train? Maybe I can help you out there. That's it for Shaped by Dogs for today. We'll see you next time.