What do you want your life with your dog to look and feel like?
If there was no social media; no internet; no TV trainers; no dog training books; no podcasts; no dog trainers; nobody telling you what to do.
Would it to be different to what it looks and feels like now, if there was nobody to influence you, nobody to tell you what you should be doing?
Because I really wonder how much of what people say they want from their dogs and lives together, is what they really want, and how much of it is what they’ve been told they should want by others.
Here’s what I want my life with my dogs to look and feel like:
For us to happily coexist together at home. That means my dogs are happy, confident and relaxed enough to move freely around the house and yard, choosing when and where to rest or sleep; when to go outside for the toilet; to nap in the sun or rest in the shade; to sniff or explore outside or to watch and listen to what’s going on around them, without getting concerned or over-aroused; to play together or with toys.
I put that first because we spend much more time at home than we do in any other location put together.
I want them to feel safe and secure with me, meaning they can clearly communicate their wants and needs and I’ll respond. I want them to know that if they tell me something; I’m listening, I’m watching, I’m doing my absolute best to understand what they’re asking for and telling me.
I want to be able to take my dogs for walks, off lead exercise, classes, social outings, days out, and holidays and for those activities to be mutually enjoyable. Again, I want them to be happy, confident and relaxed so we can do those things together easily and without stress.
I want my dogs to feel happy, confident and relaxed around other dogs and people. That doesn’t mean I expect them to want to interact with everyone, or play with every dog they encounter, but I want them to be able to be around others without feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
I’ve been a competitor in a range of Dog Sports now for close to 30 years, so I also want my dogs to enjoy the training, the social side that goes with it; enjoy the travel and exploring new places that comes with it; to enjoy the competitions themselves. Because if my dogs didn’t love it as much as I do, we wouldn’t do it together. On the occasions where one of my dogs told me they didn’t want to continue a particular activity, we stopped; no questions asked; behaviour is information, and I listen to what my dogs tell me. Thankfully with such a huge range of Dog Sports now on offer, we can always swap to something else that better suits their physical ability and age, even if it’s not competitively.
Apart from the Dog Sport training (obviously there’s a lot involved in that), there’s not a huge amount of training necessarily required for the rest of it. Most of it is building trust and confidence and creating a safe relationship and predictable routines. That can be done without a lot of training, or training in the conventional sense.
Because dogs who feel safe and who can trust their humans, are much more likely to make good decisions and be adaptable. That doesn’t mean training doesn’t matter and doesn’t have its place; given it’s how I make a living it would be silly of me to suggest that!!
But I worry that the important things that I’ve described are overlooked by many; not because people think they don’t matter, but because those things may not even be on the radar for some, and many dog owners are so focused on “training”, teaching their dogs to do stuff, and not do stuff; trying to change behaviours that are problematic.
Of course, problematic behaviours need to be addressed. If dogs are putting themselves and/or others at risk, if they’re causing a nuisance to others, if their emotional wellbeing is compromised and their quality of life is impacted all those things matter. But with the prevalence of social media trainers now, especially those whose egos well exceed their knowledge, and influencers who have no interest in, nor any care for dog welfare, it’s so easy for dog owners to be fed a constant stream of potentially harmful information, without realising it.
I guess it’s like all the body image posts on social media which create false expectations of how people should look; when you read, hear and see the same message repeatedly, said with confidence, said loudly, from multiple sources, it becomes the “truth” to those who consume the content.
When influencers and uneducated dog trainers produce content that’s repeated, loudly, with confidence, and there’s so much of it, dog owners can easily be led down the wrong path of believing that’s the truth. But outsourcing our thinking to others is not a good idea when those “others” don’t have ours and our dogs’ best interests at heart. It’s risky, it can be dangerous and can seriously compromise our dogs’ welfare.
So, I’ll ask again, what do YOU want your life with your dog to look and feel like? Not what do OTHERS tell you it must look and feel like.
Do you want your dog’s every move to be controlled and micromanaged? Or do you want your dog to be happy, confident and relaxed enough to make their own good choices, so you don’t need to control and manage everything?
Do you want them to look perfectly obedient to others when in public? Are you more concerned about how they appear to strangers, rather than allowing them to be imperfectly themselves?
Do you watch videos on social media and feel you and your dog aren’t good enough because they don’t have a perfect recall; they don’t walk perfectly by your side on walks? Are you measuring success as a dog owner by others’ perceived accomplishments rather than how you want to live your life with your dog?
I remember reading something years ago, I can’t remember the exact wording, and it wasn’t from a dog-related source (yeah, I know, sometimes that happens). It was along the lines of “but what if I’m happy being mediocre”? Because so much of what we read, hear and see is about being the best, living up to expectations, always climbing the ladder of success, and if you don’t do those things, somehow, you’ve failed. And that really hit home for me, because I’m very happy being me, I’ve never really conformed. I’ve never wanted or needed to be the best at anything, I disliked the time I spent working in the corporate world in my previous life and all the false crap that went with it, I never wanted to climb the corporate ladder. I’m happy mucking around with my dogs, hanging out at home, and earning some money helping others to live better lives with their dogs. I don’t want or need to be rich (OK I wouldn’t turn down a huge sum of money if I was offered it), but that’s not what matters for me.
And I wonder how much of the pressure we put on our dogs to be well behaved and obedient and not to display any unwanted behaviour, is the equivalent of feeling the need to have the perfectly presented and tidy home, the newest car, the most up to date phone or the trendiest clothes. Is that what people really want? Or is it what we’ve been told we want by social media and the relentless marketing we’re exposed to. Are we always trying to live up to others’ expectations? Because the more we chase, the more we want, the more I feel true happiness is compromised, and we lose some of our true identity along the way.
We make all the decisions for our dogs, they don’t have a say in anything, what we do and what we say goes, they can’t opt out. What do our dogs need to be truly happy? What do we need for ourselves to be truly happy with our lives with our dogs?
I’m not by any stretch suggesting dogs are allowed to run rogue, causing danger to others, compromising their own safety, creating a nuisance to others and being unmanageable in public. It’s the mechanism by which we reach that safety and being a good canine citizen that I’m asking everyone to question. Is “obedience” in the traditional sense what people really want, or need? Or is carefully setting boundaries by building trust and safety, guiding our dogs to be able to confidently and happily fit into our lives really what we want and need? Those things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, but it’s the emphasis that we place on them that I’m asking people to think about.
So next time you hear, read or see something that tells you, “Your dog needs to do this; your dog must never do that”, just stop and think for a moment. Is that what you want, or are you letting someone else tell you what you want?
Because we can only move forwards and make things better for our dogs, by always questioning, being curious, stopping and thinking, not just taking what we read, hear and see on face value. When you know better you do better. Let’s all be better for our dogs.
| Tags:Owner Education |
