02/04/2025
Good morning! Here is a very good and VERY IMPORTANT read!
99% of dogs with behavioral issues don’t need medication, they need rules, structure, and accountability…aka high quality, reality-based training and leadership.
But current cultural and societal trends have not only disconnected us from nature and reality personally, but countless trainers — whether indoctrinated or just opportunistic — encourage and push owners in the direction of only sharing that which is “positive” and that which feels good… even if the results created are anything but.
And so medication (along with avoidance, hyper-management, “enrichment” games, and intellectually complex [and of course “positive”] training protocols which yield no true positive outcomes) are used instead.
If you know what to look for, it’s incredibly easy to see.
Our current obsession with positive-only/force-free lifestyles and training with our dogs — approaches which don’t align with reality, so of course don’t create healthy results — demand that we find all manner of superficial substitutes for the real stuff. That’s it. That’s what’s actually going on. Just look and you’ll see it.
And just a heads up from the frontlines: my best guess is that about 85% of dogs who come into our program have tried medication or are still on it when they sign up. And about 1% of truly challenged, often genetically/cognitively compromised dogs still need medication post-training. Which means, almost none of the dogs on meds actually need them, or benefit from them. They just need proper, common sense, reality-based training. Period.
Just remember, it takes two to tango. Trainers who wish to lead you and your dog astray can only do so if you allow them. And so many do allow them because the emotional appeal is so strong. But as always, we can choose that which feels good, and is easy, or we can choose that which does good, and is hard.
The choice is yours — just know your dog will pay the price or will excel depending on how honest, how deep, and how courageous you choose to be.
