19/04/2026
This isn’t complicated. When your dog’s behavior causes continuous, intense distress, and you don’t know how to properly address it—even the kindest, most virtuous, and loving owners… will lose their cool, and they will find a way to alleviate the distress.
Whether that’s being painfully drug around on walks; or being scratched, bruised, and knocked down while they jump all over them; or being bitten when they overstep a boundary their dog has created for them; or when they steal food off the counter; or when they bark incessantly; or when they destroy the home; or when they attack guests; or…
Dogs engage in countless behaviors which, if one has no idea how to properly stop them… are massive quality of life issues.
And only the delusional believes that if people are “good” enough, they’ll find workarounds.
They might, for a while. But everyone has their breaking point. When the “right” behavior occurs on a day when the “right” life stuff has gone down, and the stress and anxiety are bubbling over… you can bet that even the very best people will reach the end of their tether, and the dog will pay.
To be clear, I’m not endorsing or validating frustrated, angry, out of control responses—I’m simply pointing out what we all know to be true, but pretend to be above… reality.
Here’s the simple truth. If owners actually know how to live well with their dogs—meaning, they know how to fulfill, guide, and enjoy them—in all aspects, which absolutely includes properly punishing unwanted, unhealthy, and even dangerous behavior, they’ll be properly setup to deal with behavior issues successfully. And when owners can successfully navigate behavior issues, then frustrated, angry, out of control responses don’t happen.
But the positive-only/force-free delusionists would have you believe that you need none of these skills. That if you’re just patient enough, and good enough, you’ll be able to ignore, or manage, or suffer through it, and we’ll all live happily ever after.
And as is always the case when delusional humans decide how we should live with our dogs, the dogs pay the price.
