16/05/2022
"Don't give up on the hard dogs. They will teach you something you never knew you needed."
~Kathy Kawalec
The thing is, we have inherited some things that are ALL WRONG about dogs.
We have been wrongly led to believe that in order for our dogs to be cooperative, they must be trained to be obedient and rewarded for their compliance.
Most of us dog moms have been conditioned to focus on obedience, compliance and ensuring that our dogs fit societal expectations of what a 'good dog' is supposed to be like.
Basically, that means no matter what our dog's personality or individual preferences, and no matter how they feel, all dogs need to be trained to behave like all good dogs are supposed to behave. No matter what.
So we keep trying harder, doing more training, searching for better rewards, doing our best to train our dogs to be more obedient and more like they're 'supposed to' be. And when it doesn't work, we double down and try even harder. This creates a lot of pressure, guilt, worry and feeling like a failure...and it makes some dogs 'hard'.
Years ago, I got some good advice from an old timer about my young dog Luc, who was proving to be a bit of a challenge for me. He told me that if I keep escalating my training efforts like I had been doing, that I would end up making him a 'hard dog'. That what I should do instead was back off the training, and focus on being soft myself, and to be a better listener. That way we would learn to hear each others whispers.
That may be the best advice I have ever gotten...and it worked like a charm! We grew up to become brilliant partners together ... both on and off of the herding field.
