02/13/2025
Train your dog to be a great k9 citizen and not worry about other people and their opinions.
What will people think?
I once had a client who, despite doing really well in class, claimed that their dog is horrible on their walks.
To address the problem, we went through all the scenarios that the client described and worked on how to approach different situations. The dog worked nicely, was attentive, and there seemed to be no issues with its obedience whatsoever.
Nevertheless, the problematic behaviour persisted. This client was worried that the dog was highly reactive on walks (in class, it was calm and attentive); pulled hard on leash (in class, it heeled confidently); and jumped on people (hasn’t jumped on anyone in class even when we purposefully set such a situation up).
Whenever such a discrepancy occurs, where I see a well-behaved dog and their owner sees a troublemaker, it means that either this person was not doing their homework, or that the way in which they communicate with the dog differs between class and home setting.
I knew for a fact that the former was not the case, so I asked whether this person did something different at home. Perhaps they used different commands? Different body language? The client claimed that everything was the same.
After contemplating what might be the issue for a while, I decided to “stalk” my client as they were getting their dog to the car. The dog was doing fine—it jogged along its owner with a happy tail wag. As they were getting close to the car, another car pulled in; the door opened, and a gentleman stepped out of it, holding a small dog. He saw my client’s dog, said “Awe, such a cute puppy,” and all of a sudden, everything started going south.
My client’s dog started lunging and barking; my client, instead of addressing the issue, started apologizing profusely to this gentleman, all while their dog kept driving itself crazy.
I stepped out and asked my client about what just happened and why they were not doing anything about their dog’s attitude, to which they responded, “I don’t want people to think that I am mean.”
In other words, this person chose to apologize for bad behaviour instead of preventing it or dealing with it, all because someone else’s opinion mattered so much to them.
This desire to be perceived as polite and nice is so firmly instilled in people’s minds that in stressful situations it overwhelms all common sense. You must have seen folks trying to talk their reactive dogs down, right? Or those whose dog decided to sit and not move, while a person was patiently waiting for this dog to change their mind? These are some of the cases of “what will people think.”
The thing is, people will not think because they generally do not care.
Whenever they do, they cannot know the full picture, and it is not their place to judge.
If they judge or give you negative feedback because you corrected your dog for barking at people, there is no point of accepting such feedback because it is coming out of place of ignorance.
Smile, wave, and learn how to say (preferably with a heavy foreign accent), “I don’t speak no English,” and you will see how much your life with your dog will improve. After all, at the end of the day, it does not matter what people will think. It matters what your dog will think and what you will think about yourself.
(c) Ala Krivov, 2025
P.S.: In the picture, Bernie is showing precisely how much one should care about people's opinions, especially when it comes to being silly and playing with their dog or correcting it for something.
A professional trainer for over 40 years, Offering private and group lessons.
