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In Praise of Dogs
By Marilyn Marks
Owner of The Good Dog Spot! in Bloomfield
One of my biggest challenges as a dog trainer is getting people to understand what a trained dog is; what expectations to have for their dog. Everyone wants Lassie: never strays, is gentle with all living things, understands English, especially the part about not stealing food well within reach, able to defend family and property without actually harming any one and only when really needed (not from the mail carrier).
Oh, and they want all that with little or no effort.
Another standard is offered by police and service dogs. They walk at heel, hanging on their handler’s every word. They are calm when the handler is inactive and hard-working when needed. Who wouldn’t want that – in their kid and their employees, let alone their dog?!? But don’t forget, these dogs get hours of professional training. And notice that the person is called the "handler" not the "owner;" it’s a job and a responsibility to work the dog. Did you know that even when dogs are specifically bred for the job, only some of them end up making good working dogs? It’s also not uncommon for service dogs to have to come in for "repairs" when their responsiveness breaks down.
And you want your Pound Puppy to do what? (Not that we don’t love our Pound Puppies!) This isn’t to say the average dog can’t be well trained, but it is to say your dog is probably behaving fairly well for the amount of work you put in.
People often call for obedience classes because their dog is jumping on guests, stealing food from the counter, running with shoes, etc. What? Do they think the word "sit" is going to control all that running amok? The answer isn’t to run around saying "sit!" "down!" "off!" "come!" when the dog does something wrong, it’s to get the dog to stop jumping, stealing, and running off in the first place. This requires more than obedience to commands.
People often want to work on just the problem, they don’t want an overall "trained" dog. That’s not easy, since the root cause is a lack of relationship and communication. In other words, there are no other perceived problems but, by a trainer’s standards, there is not a solid foundation between owner (handler) and dog.
A funny story: A client’s dog jumps all over me as I enter. She apologizes, saying that she has worked hard at it but her 12 year old son continues to play rough with the dog. She is pretty upset at having a dog that continues to get excited at the door. Eventually I get her to understand that she has had difficulty getting her son to comply, and he speaks English; how easy does she think it is for the dog to understand what she wants?
I encourage my clients to work with what they have (given their own dog’s nature) to the degree that they can (given their own lives) and love what they get out of it. Our dogs do have minds of their own which may at times be at odds with ours, but they always give us their heart.
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