06/26/2025
The dog industry in the last 10 years or so has become more about quick fixes and Band-Aids than long term results.
Humans have been indoctrinated into believing that ‘faster’ is ‘better’. That convenience is a measurement of quality, since ostensibly, it makes our lives easier.
It’s a great model if you are getting fuel, need to stop for milk or bread, or need to stop at the ATM for some party cash.
It’s not so great when planning to build a home, perform brake repair on your car, or undergo heart surgery.
Dog training is another endeavor that is incompatible with ‘fast’, much like a college education isn’t ‘fast’. It is only undergone after many years of previous formal schooling, and it is the rare child that can accelerate their learning beyond the traditional 12 years of pre-schooling before college.
That performance pressure is never healthy, for humans or animals. It creates conflict where none should exist and there is undeniably always fallout. For the dog, at least...
Just like kids that enter college at early ages, it can lead to unintended pressure that leaks out at different times, for different reasons, once that ‘program’ is complete.
There are a lot of drawbacks to enrolling a dog in the wrong program, or with the wrong trainer. regardless of how sincere the trainer may be, or how eager the owner may be.
Lately, our news aggregators are inundated with the arrests and convictions of people calling themselves trainers (this month alone, a woman in Florida charged with the deaths of at least 3 dogs, and a man in Texas videotaped brutalizing several different dogs) taking advantage of naïve owners, injuring or even killing dogs in their care.
Performance anxiety is a thing, but it’s still no excuse.
I have learned two things over the years; confidence should never exceed skill, and to err on the side of caution. When it comes to training animals, you really need to remember the animal. Most dogs coming for behavior remediation are not willing participants.
People like transparency. People hate to be lied to. Instead of telling them their dog will be ‘cured’ I tell them the truth; that training isn’t a panacea. It is a means with which to communicate effectively and proactively, to prevent problems in the future.
We as trainers have a moral and ethical obligation to be as transparent as possible when it comes to providing a service to something as important to people as their beloved companion.
People care about their animals a great deal. When the collective ‘we’ are dishonest in our representation or create more problems than we solve, we breach a sacred trust that reflects upon us all.
When the collective ‘we’ push for instant results and then turn our heads when things go wrong, we open the door for more insidious laws that hobble our ability to reach more people and help their dogs.
When we are unwilling to police our own, we turn a blind eye to the needs of the public both as service providers and as wardens of public safety.
Every dog we touch is a reflection of us. The sensitivity with how we handle each and every one will be measured. The quality of our work should also be measured.
It’s not that difficult to present a professional image. Fancy dog trainer pants and a Belgian Malinois doesn’t make someone a dog trainer any more than brushing your teeth makes you a dentist (H/T to Julia M).
