I hope this column finds you and yours beginning a wonderful new year, one filled with hope, optimism and plans for better things over the coming months.  I really mean that, and in light of making things just a little better for a change, as opposed to grumbling about the way they have been or how they are, I am going to transfer this desire to our canine friends.

My wish for this year is more kindness to our animals.

That sounds a little hokey for a professional dog trainer I know, but I truly wish that all of us working with dogs (or horses or llamas….etc.) would keep something constantly in our minds:  I wish that people would look at any animal with which they interact, as a living thing, bearing a spirit, a heart and soul and the intrinsic desire to contribute to and affect the world in which they have found themselves. Dogs are not people in furry little four-legged suits.  There are tremendous differences in our natures and make-up, and I not for one second think treating animals like people is a good thing. (Unless it prevents abuse or cruelty in any form, of course.) Instead, taking an honest, objective and humane look at what we’ve really got in our hands – and mapping our actions, both personal and training related, in that light.
Dogs are completely vulnerable to us.  They eat when we say they can, they eat what we want them to eat.  They sleep where we direct or leave available and they are subject to us on virtually every aspect of their lives.  They learn the nature of their world completely by what we allow them to learn.  If they are nothing more than a commodity to us, then they act as such, with little connection or joy. If they are the children we never had or some missing thing in our emotional lives, they become surrogates for what is missing and not capable of being true to their own natures and needs.
For all those electric collar, heeling stick bearing field trainers out there, I really wish the humanity could come into play. Field dogs get zapped, hit with sticks, screamed at and worse – all in the light of training them for hunting or competition.  Toughness is necessary, discipline and punishment a must to reach top performances.  Teaching with pressure and correcting with pressure are signs of a knowledgeable trainer, and if it makes you uncomfortable you are a sissy or worse.

Uh huh.  I think that is the biggest pile of *!#!! on the face of the earth. Dogs do not have to scream or verbalize to learn to handle, stop on a whistle, fetch, heel, sit or remain in place. Dogs do not have to be hurt, to learn to something.  They do not have to experience pain to learn not to do something. It might be easier and quicker to use association with pain to teach a dog to one thing instead of another; but dogs can learn very sophisticated things with time, repetition and a heaping helping of patience and genuine caring on the part of the trainer.  But that translates to less money for the pro if they can’t produce the product as quickly as another, so… if money is the issue, better get moving.

I wish everyone who trains a dog to do anything very significant, would have to be that dog for about a month or so.  If they could know what it was like to feel poorly because you ate some raccoon excrement the day before when no one was looking, to have to go out and get hammered on some drill and because their stomach hurt and they felt ill, they couldn’t focus.  A dog can’t tell you that, they just seem lazy or unfocused.  You need to really up the discipline and pressure then, so they learn that doesn’t work – right? The assumption is usually that there is something very negative in the dog’s intention and you have to change that.. but how I wish the shoes could change for a bit.  What if something new being taught, which is so simple to most other dogs is really difficult for one dog?  How does the trainer read that response?  Usually as a ‘stubborn’ dog.  And then, you have to show them that being stubborn doesn’t work, with pressure.  So the confused dog gets to be confused and punished.  Great life.

With the majority of field trainers I’ve seen, this pressure is applied with electric collars (because it’s so easy; you just have to push the button and the work is done for you.)  Others like a more physical approach and that’s really lovely to watch as well.  I wish every single pro in the world had to have a camera on them when they trained other people’s dogs, so the way they trained was public knowledge, just like school teachers, coaches and human trainers. It isn’t cool to say, “Wow, that’s kind of rough, isn’t it?”  Not cool at all.

That said, I use heeling sticks and electric collars.  I’m not big on hitting anything, but I’ll apply pressure to enforce clearly taught behaviors. I’d be happier if none of us had those things.  I’d have to have people’s dogs longer and that wouldn’t go over well, but it would require being a really, really knowledgeable trainer.  That’s not very easy.  And on another note, the very greatest trainers I’ve known and learned from did not look to the tools of pressure application as a first resort.  They didn’t have to hurt dogs to get them to do things and they produced high performing animals without having to be ‘tough guys’.  They also took the time necessary, even if it didn’t make someone happy. They actually cared about and respected the animals they were training and had no desire to hurt them or show them who was boss.

What if instead, we all looked at our dogs with genuine kindness and concern, including when paying customers weren’t there and there was no one to impress? What if we assumed that mistakes were a result of our lack of teaching and not the evil intent of the dog?  What if we look close enough to see that a toe was sore or a leg was tender, or that the dog was just tired and needed some rest? What if we fed them when they should be fed instead of when we had the time, or that we knew sometimes they just needed a day to goof around and play instead of drill and work?

What if we gave these guys what we would most like ourselves?  Respect and kindness from those around us… the understanding that we are not perfect and sometimes are very far from perfect.  Days of play mixed with days of work, and genuine physical contact, and understanding that we want to have happiness, pleasure, contact with loved ones, acceptance and love. Even on a professional truck or kennel, dogs need these things.  They need honest work, high standards, rules and boundaries, but they also need to things we too need.

Whoever you are and whatever you are doing with your animals, take the time to look into their eyes.  Do not ignore what they are trying to tell you each day, their communication is far more subtle than ours. Hear their happiness and hear their despair. You have all the control, give them the life you’d want to have and they’ll reward you in ways you may have never considered.