03/17/2026
There’s a huge shift in the training world. A shift that mirrors contemporary human psychology, but applied to our dogs.
It seeks to validate all emotions (and their downstream responses), regardless of whether these responses are accurate, healthy, or beneficial to dog and the humans around them.
Here’s the thing, which any honest and grounded trainer should be able to agree upon: dogs can absolutely have valid feelings based on inaccurate interpretations of the world.
Example:
-Dog feels fear when seeing a neutral stranger.
-The fear is real and valid to the dog.
-But the interpretation (“this person is a threat”) is inaccurate.
-Therefore the reaction (lunging/barking) is unhealthy or inappropriate.
In other words, a feeling can be real, without the response being correct.
And thus my point. Someone—someone who has a far clearer, deeper, and more accurate understanding of the world should be the one making the decisions. Not the decisions as to whether a dog can or should feel something, but as to whether we simply honor these inaccurate, unhealthy, non-beneficial feelings and responses (and let them guide us)… or we step in, correct what we know to be an unhealthy and inaccurate response, and thus help guide the dog to a better place.
My simple point is this. A feeling doesn’t equal correctness, or accuracy of perception. It’s just a feeling, and often it’s based on terribly incorrect, inaccurate perceptions.
Like a child certain there’s a monster under their bed. Is their fear valid? You bet. Is it accurate, healthy, beneficial? Nope. And that’s where adults step in and create clarity, and comfort, and stress reduction.
With our dogs, we can’t explain these things and assuage their fears (or any other feelings behind unhealthy behavioral responses), but we can correct the incorrect, unhealthy, non-beneficial behavioral response, and thus, with enough repetitions, actually shift the emotional response.
Remember, the intervention point—regardless of the issue—isn’t in the emotional state, it’s in the behavioral expression. Change the behavior, and you actually change the emotional state.
But first we have to take responsibility for deciding what is correct, healthy, appropriate, beneficial. Once we step into this space, the behavioral sky is the limit.
So who decides? I’d highly suggest it’s you.
