17/11/2024
One of the current fads you’ll hear trainers and online experts pontificating about is “building confidence”. And while we’d all love to have our nervous, insecure, fearful dogs feel more confident, the stuff that’s typically put forth as the “how to get there” path is almost all style and superficial emotional “feel good” stuff and very little true substance, and truly do good stuff.
We get dog after dog after dog who is nervous, insecure, fearful, and we don’t have them running over A-Frames, jumping on top of fire hydrants, or scaling burning buildings.
No, we simply create a predictable, consistent, dependable, lifestyle framework that includes clear and consistently enforced rules. A non-chaotic, structured lifestyle. We teach a clear “yes” and “no”, and ensure the dog values both. We don’t baby, coddle, shield these nervous/fearful dogs—nope, we hold them to the highest possible standard they’re capable of. And at the foundation of it all, we have a clear attitude and belief system that humans should lead and dogs should follow. This underpins all the previous beliefs and therefor actions.
Am I saying there are no other ways to help increase confidence? Nope. What I am saying is that, as per usual, the training community looks past the obvious, the common sense, and the less fancy sounding—which your everyday owner could easily implement—in favor of what sounds like a game changing approach that is so deep, so sophisticated, and so profoundly new and different that unknowing owners flock to it. (I’ll let you figure out why that occurs over and over.)
All I know is that this un-fancy, common sense, glaringly obvious approach to training that we utilize with all our client dogs—does this exceptionally strange thing… it builds confidence. Real confidence. Not tricks and not fun-looking stuff to entice unsuspecting owners. But the real stuff that enables dogs who struggled terribly prior to training to blossom, to find they’re capable of far more than they (or their owners) ever thought, and to learn to enjoy life to a much greater degree.
So before you sign up for a “confidence building” course, first have a look at my list above, and see if there’s any gaps between the list and your life with your dog. You’d be the exceptionally rare owner who doesn’t have any of these gaps in play—which means you’ve got a ton of non-fancy, easy-to-implement work you can do to help your dog transform, and find their best version of confidence.
And that should be awfully good news. ❤️
