Canine Evolutions

04/22/2026

There are rare moments when someone whose overall philosophy I do not share still says something that is undeniably true. This is one of those moments.

Good dog training is expensive. Real dog training, not performance, not branding, not recycled internet slogans, not dominance theater dressed up as expertise, but the kind of work that genuinely changes the inner life of a dog and transforms the relationship between dog and human, is expensive. In many cases it is even more expensive than veterinary care, and that is precisely where many people begin to feel discomfort. They will spend thousands once the body has broken down, once pathology has become undeniable, once surgery, medication, or emergency intervention has become necessary, but when it comes to the mind, the behavior, the relationship, and the prevention of suffering, many still expect that a few free messages, a short phone call, or a quick comment online should somehow be enough.

A serious behavioral case is not solved through casual advice tossed across the internet. Aggression is not unwound through a paragraph. Anxiety is not healed through a free inbox exchange. Deep dysregulation is not reversed by a slogan, a tip, or a clever little training hack. These dogs do not need fragments. They need a process. They need skill, timing, discernment, observation, and the kind of knowledge that only comes from years of immersion in the work. They need someone who can look beyond the visible behavior and see the nervous system underneath it, the relationship underneath it, the human patterns feeding it, the environmental salience shaping it, and the subtle moments where change can either begin or be lost. That kind of education is rare, and rarity has value.

I say that as someone who has given far too much away for free over the years. I have discounted heavily. I have done pro bono work. I have bartered with people. I have built lifetime programs precisely to make access easier and to give committed people a way to receive serious, high-level education without being crushed by cost all at once. I have made exceptions that many people never even knew about. I have given my time, my mind, my body, and my margin because I care deeply about the dogs and because I know what happens when people cannot find real help. And if I am completely honest, that generosity has at times bitten me financially in the backside. Helping people, discounting, bartering, trying to keep training accessible, has on more than one occasion put me in a difficult financial position myself, and I am complaining here just telling the truth.

So when I speak about the cost of good training, I am not speaking from greed. I am speaking from lived experience. I am speaking as someone who knows exactly what it means to give too much away and still be expected to give more, because many people still do not understand what they are actually asking for when they seek serious help with a dog.

They think they are asking for an hour. They are not. They are asking for decades. They are asking for the years behind the hour. They are asking for all the failures, all the observations, all the dogs, all the casework, all the study, all the refinement, all the responsibility, all the restraint it took to learn not only what to do, but what not to do. They are asking for the trained eye that can notice the shift in breath before the explosion, the tension in a shoulder before the leash tightens, the posture in a human body that is already destabilizing the interaction, the difference between a dog that is quiet because it understands and a dog that is quiet because it has been pressured into silence.

Too many people still think dog training is about getting the dog to perform behaviors. Sit. Down. Heel. Quiet. Stop. Obey. But the deeper work, the work that matters in difficult cases, is not merely about visible obedience. It is about state change. It is about regulation. It is about salience. It is about trust. It is about helping a human being understand what they are looking at and become capable of meeting the dog in a different way. That is education in the truest sense. Not the transfer of tricks, but the reshaping of perception. Not the selling of commands, but the cultivation of understanding. And that kind of education costs money because it took a life to build.

There is also something else that needs to be said plainly. Some trainers are in the luxury position of having built a large enough online machine that they make enormous money from visibility itself. Fame becomes the business. The algorithm becomes the business. The image becomes the business. The cars, the lifestyle, the constant performance of success, the endless reach of content, all of that becomes its own economy. When that happens, it is much easier to hand out free advice because the advice is no longer carrying the full weight of the business model. The brand is. The audience is. The monetized attention is, I am not in that position.

I am not a flashy YouTuber whose income is largely insulated by online fame. I work in the difficult reality of actual canine cases, actual humans, actual suffering, actual long-term change. I live much closer to the field than to the performance of the field. So yes, I give a lot away, and perhaps too much, but every hour I give truly costs me. Every discount comes from somewhere real. Every barter, every exception, every reduced rate, every piece of free guidance is absorbed by an actual working life, not hidden inside some giant social media machine that pays for the generosity.

And just because someone occasionally says something true does not mean I suddenly stand beside their philosophy. I do not. My work is rooted in relationship, regulation, science, embodiment, salience, and the deep mechanics of behavior. It is not rooted in alpha mythology, forced submission, flashy bravado, or the reduction of a living being into a problem to dominate. Those are not minor stylistic disagreements. They are foundational differences in how one sees dogs, how one sees suffering, and how one defines change itself. But truth remains truth, even when it comes from a source I would never model myself after.

And the truth here is simple. If you want truly excellent help, you are asking for access to something rare. You are asking for the accumulated weight of years, of practice, of study, of heartbreak, of responsibility, of obsession, of refinement, and of hard-earned discernment. You are not paying only for time. You are paying for depth. You are paying for someone who has spent years learning how not to deceive you about your dog, how not to mistake suppression for healing, and how not to offer simplistic answers to deeply complex problems.

Dogs deserve more than convenience. They deserve more than random advice from strangers online. They deserve more than the fantasy that profound behavioral suffering can be solved for free in a comment section. They deserve skilled hands, educated eyes, and humans willing to understand that real transformation asks for real investment.

And yes, that investment costs money.

As it should.

Bart De Gols

Let’s be for real and realistic.,
As the dog trainer who gives the most free dog training/advise and go above and beyond to help as many people as possible, I’m not greedy at all, I give, give, give. I’m known for they amongst my clients.
I’ll be the first one to tell you that it’s very unlikely that you’ll be able to solve your dog’s behavioral issues by taking free advice from random “dog trainers” online. And any actually good dog trainers are BUSY. It’s unrealistic that they will be able to give you solid advice ONE ON ONE online for free. I know what it takes for me to do that. It’s hard , and only less than 1 percent of my audience will actually get that because it’d actually impossible to do that. If someone is known and good for what they do, I can promise you, they won’t be solving your problems for free over the internet.. the only reason I’m typing this is because people really aren’t up to speed with their responsibilities as dog owners or aware of what it takes to get their dogs trained professionally ( ohh , I just need a little advice) NO. You need actual training. And this is coming from someone who could offer their training 💯 for free and still make more more money than any other dog trainer because I build my brand that way. But with that being said only a tiny percentage of my followers would ever be able to get that one on one hands on or even less one on one virtual attention for free.
And I see the demand, I see the need, I wish I could solve all your problems but that’s not realistic and I wish more people would understand that. And think about that BEFORE they get a dog. There are no good hot lines for behavioral issues or any sort of dog training. It’s a lonely dark road if you’re not willing to put in the time and money that it takes to train your dogs. Or you’re in the less than 1 percent who gets lucky and get actual good advice from a reputable trainer for free , I hope this helps in you decision making ❤️

04/15/2026

Today, my "Private Facebook training group" turns 10 years old.

Ten years.

When I look back at that number, I do not only think about time. I think about growth. I think about evolution. I think about the long road of learning, unlearning, refining, failing, rebuilding, and slowly coming closer to something more honest and more true in the way we live and work with dogs.

This group has changed a great deal over those ten years, but so have I.

What began as a place to share thoughts, observations, training principles, and philosophy gradually became something much deeper. It became a community of people willing to ask harder questions. A place where training was never meant to remain at the level of technique alone, but where the deeper architecture underneath behavior could be explored. Over time, this group became a reflection of an evolution in thinking, from surface behavior to internal state, from control to relationship, from command and compliance to regulation, clarity, cognition, and mutual respect.

Along the way, I have seen many people come and go.

Some stayed for a season and moved on. Some remained for years. And some, remarkably, have been with me for well over 14 years and are still here. Many have been with me since the very beginning of this group and continue to walk this road beside me. That kind of loyalty means more than I can properly express, because it tells me that for some, this was never just about dog training. It was about a deeper way of seeing, a deeper way of living with dogs, and a deeper willingness to grow. Others came, listened for a while, and moved on, which is also part of the natural course of any long journey. Some truly understood the depth of what I was trying to teach, while others heard the words but never really let them enter deeply enough to change the way they saw their dog, or themselves. There have always been those who still viewed behavior primarily as an inconvenience to be stopped, managed, or controlled, rather than as information, communication, and the expression of a nervous system, a history, and a relationship. For those people, I was likely a very big disappointment, because what I teach has never been about offering the fastest path to "fix" the symptoms. It has always asked more of the human. It has always asked for reflection, humility, patience, accountability, and the willingness to look inward.

And that is not easy.

But for the people who truly understood it, for the ones who felt the deeper truth in it, this space became something entirely different. Not because I needed to be placed on a pedestal, but because when someone finally sees the dog not as a problem to be controlled but as a being to be understood, something profound begins to happen. The work changes. The relationship changes. The human changes. Those are the people who often tell me I changed their life, but the truth is far more humbling than that.

It was the dogs that taught me.

It was the dogs that forced me to look deeper. The dogs that refused shallow answers. The dogs that exposed the limitations of old frameworks. The dogs that humbled me, corrected me, challenged me, and allowed me to grow. Every difficult case, every fearful dog, every reactive dog, every shut-down dog, every powerful dog that could not be bullied into peace, every sensitive dog that collapsed under human misunderstanding, all of them shaped me. They did not simply pass through my life. They educated me. They opened doors in my thinking that no textbook ever could. If there is wisdom in what I teach today, much of it was earned through them.

So when I think about ten years of this group, I do not think of it as ten years of me teaching others. I think of it as ten years of collective evolution, rooted in the dogs themselves. They have always been the true center of this work. They are the reason the philosophy deepened. They are the reason the language became more precise. They are the reason I moved further and further away from superficial explanations and closer to the emotional, neurological, relational truth underneath behavior.

And in many ways, this entire evolution has led me toward the understanding I now describe in my upcoming books, The Space Between Minds, Through the Eyes of the Wolf, and The Regulated Human. Those works did not appear out of nowhere. They were born from this journey. They were shaped by the dogs, by the people, by the failures, the breakthroughs, the observations, the questions, and the years spent trying to understand what truly lives between a human being and a dog. The growth of this group, and my own growth within it, helped carve the path toward those ideas. This evolution led to that work.

This group has been a witness to that evolution.

It has seen ideas sharpen over time. It has seen old beliefs fall away. It has seen the movement from simply correcting outward expression toward understanding mind state, emotional regulation, and the space between human and dog where real learning takes place. It has seen people grow from frustrated handlers into thoughtful partners. It has seen dogs who once lived in chaos become clear. It has seen humans begin to understand that their own breath, posture, energy, impatience, insecurity, and emotional state are never separate from the dog in front of them.

That, to me, is the real legacy of this group.

Not popularity. Not agreement. Not numbers.

Depth.

Because depth is what has always mattered to me. Truth is what has always mattered to me. And truth has a way of dividing people. Some will turn away from it because it asks too much. Others will recognize themselves inside it and never see dogs the same way again.

Both have happened here over these ten years.

And still, this group remains.

Still growing. Still evolving. Still questioning. Still pushing beyond trends, beyond slogans, beyond the shallow comfort of black-and-white thinking. Still trying, in its own way, to honor the complexity of the dog and the responsibility of the human.

So today I feel gratitude more than anything else.

Gratitude for those who have been here a long time. Gratitude for those who contributed thoughtfully and sincerely. Gratitude for those who stayed open enough to let this work challenge them. Gratitude for the dogs, above all, who made every bit of this possible. Without them, none of this growth would have happened. Without them, I would not have become the man, teacher, or thinker I am today.

Ten years is a milestone, yes.

But more importantly, it is ten years of evolution.

And I believe, with humility, that what has been built over these ten years is only the beginning of what this work is meant to become.

Bart De Gols

04/07/2026

A NEW PARASITIC TAPEWORM IN THE PNW! A RISK FOR DOGS AND HUMANS

A new University of Washington report, which I will place in the comments, should be a wake-up call for dog owners in this state. Researchers found Echinococcus multilocularis, a parasitic tapeworm with serious consequences for both dogs and humans, in 37 out of 100 coyotes studied in the Puget Sound region. This is the first time it has been identified in a wild host on the west coast of the contiguous United States. This matters, and it deserves far more attention than it will probably receive.

The problem is not simply that a parasite exists in wildlife. The problem is that many people still live with dogs as if biology does not apply to them. Coyotes can carry this parasite without looking sick and shed eggs in their f***s. Rodents become part of that cycle, and dogs can become exposed when they hunt rodents, scavenge carcasses, or move through contaminated environments. In humans, the disease process can be extremely serious, affecting the liver and other organs, and symptoms may take years to appear.

This is exactly why I keep saying that responsible dog ownership is not sentimental nonsense, not slogans, and not the modern fantasy that every expression of freedom is somehow good for the dog. Letting dogs roam, letting them obsessively hunt vermin, letting them scavenge, letting them run unmanaged through wildlife-heavy environments, and then acting surprised when disease enters the picture is not natural wisdom. It is ignorance. The researchers specifically advise preventing dogs from preying on rodents or scavenging rodent carcasses, along with maintaining routine veterinary care and parasite prevention.

Awareness does not mean hysteria. The report notes that although the parasite was found in more than one-third of the coyotes sampled, evidence of spread into other hosts in this region is still limited. The article cites seven canine cases in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho since 2023, five of them in Washington, and no reported human cases on the West Coast so far. Good.

So read the source in the comments. Take it seriously. Do not allow your dog to hunt rodents. Do not allow scavenging. Keep your veterinary care current. Stop assuming that because you cannot see a risk, it is not there. Some of the greatest threats to the health of our dogs, and sometimes to our own health, move quietly through bad management, poor awareness, and human complacency.

Bart De Gols

source: https://www.washington.edu/news/2026/04/06/parasitic-tapeworm-a-risk-to-domestic-dogs-and-humans-found-in-washington-coyotes/

04/05/2026

Happy Easter! Wishing you all an awesome spring and happiness with your pooches! Bart De Gols

03/12/2026

Over the years I have come to realize that one of the greatest sources of frustration people experience with their dogs has very little to do with the dog itself. Much of it comes from something far more subtle: expectation.

Expectation is the mother of frustration.

Humans rarely approach their dogs with a neutral mind. Instead, we carry expectations, goals, and dreams into the relationship. We imagine what the dog should become. We imagine how the dog should behave. We imagine the future we want with that dog — the perfectly behaved companion, the competition partner, the service dog, the hiking partner, the dog that represents something meaningful to us.

None of these things are wrong in themselves. Goals and dreams are natural for humans. But dogs do not live inside our goals. Dogs do not live inside our dreams. And dogs certainly do not care about our expectations. Dogs live in the present moment.

When people interact with their dogs, they are often no longer truly seeing the dog in front of them. Instead, they are measuring the dog against the image they have created in their mind. And the moment reality does not match that internal image, frustration appears.

If we were to put this into a simple equation, it would look like this:

Expectation – Observation = Frustration

The human expected one thing. The human observed something else.

And immediately the dog becomes the problem. The dog is labeled stubborn, distracted, dominant, disobedient, or “not listening.” But very often the deeper issue is something far more uncomfortable to admit. Our observation is often very wrong.

Dogs are communicating with us constantly through subtle signals: posture, breathing, muscle tension, orientation in space, the movement of the eyes and ears, the way they engage or disengage with their environment. This language is incredibly rich, but it is also easy to miss if we are looking through the lens of expectation. Expectation narrows perception.

When we expect something specific to happen, we stop observing objectively. Instead of seeing what the dog is actually communicating, we see only the difference between what we wanted to happen and what actually happened. And that difference becomes frustration.

I see this every single week. People arrive with plans, goals, timelines, and dreams for their dog. They want progress. They want results. They want the dog to move toward the picture they already hold in their mind. But the dog standing in front of them is not interested in those human constructs.

Your dog does not care about your goals.
Your dog does not care about your dreams.
Your dog does not care about your expectations.

Your dog only communicates one thing: Where they are in that moment. Emotionally. Neurologically. Environmentally.

When we forget the dog that is actually in front of us and instead interact with the dog we wish we had, we create tension in the relationship. That tension is not coming from the dog. It is coming from us.

This is why I often tell people something that may sound counterintuitive: if your observation skills are not yet refined enough to truly read the communication of the dog, then it is better to approach your dog without expectation. Expectation blinds. Observation reveals.

When expectation disappears, curiosity appears. You begin to notice the small signals you previously missed. You begin to see when the dog is regulated and when the dog is overwhelmed. You begin to understand that behavior is not disobedience but communication. And slowly, something shifts.

Instead of forcing the dog to live inside your expectations, you begin to meet the dog where they actually are. That is where relationship begins. Because real connection does not grow out of expectation. It grows out of honest observation.

— Bart De Gols 🐾

03/03/2026

Today at 11am, I did the hardest thing a human can ever do for a dog they love. I set my Popsie free. Her watch has endend

Walkiria "Chooser of the Slain" Van Tiekerhook. My girl. Six and a half years on this earth, and yet it feels as though she lived a hundred lifetimes inside those years. Oral melanoma took her body, and the metastasis moved with a cruelty and speed that felt almost violent in its indifference. I fought with everything I had. We fought together. But this morning I looked into her eyes and understood that the battle was no longer hers to endure. Love sometimes means holding on with ferocity. And sometimes it means releasing with reverence. Today it meant release.

She came into my life at six weeks old — a small, fierce, impossibly aware little being who already carried an intensity that felt ancient. From the beginning, she did not simply belong to me. She chose me. There is a difference. Many people speak about ownership; few understand devotion that is mutual. With Popsie, there was never a leash that defined us. There was a field between minds — that invisible, sacred space I have spent my life trying to articulate — and she stepped into it effortlessly. She did not need theory. She embodied it.

When Falca passed six months ago, many of you witnessed the depth of that loss. I wrote about her. I dedicated a chapter in The Space Between Minds to her. Falca was monumental. She shaped me. She steadied me. She walked beside me like an old soul who had agreed to guide me for a season. But Walkiria… Popsie… she was something else entirely. The bond we shared was so intense it almost defies language. If Falca refined my understanding, Popsie ignited it.

She became my demo dog for Tactical K9 Solutions and Canine Evolutions, but she was never a “demo.” She was the living proof of what I teach. When I speak about regulation, about resonance, about the difference between the primal storm and the cognitive stillness, I was often describing her. The way she would look at me during a session — not waiting for command, not anticipating reward, but simply present — was the purest expression of trust I have ever known. She moved through environments not because I controlled her, but because we were connected. She read my breath. She felt my nervous system. She adjusted when I adjusted. That kind of synchrony cannot be forced. It is earned through thousands of small, honest moments.

She was intense, yes. High drive. Fierce. Full of vinegar and life. But inside that fire was a softness reserved only for the space between us. In quiet moments at home, when the world was stripped away and there were no students, no demonstrations, no expectations, she would rest her head against me with a depth of surrender that felt sacred. In those moments I was not a trainer. I was not a teacher. I was simply her human.

Cancer does not care about bond. It does not negotiate with devotion. It invaded her mouth, her throat, and then spread with a speed that felt almost surreal. Watching her body betray her while her eyes remained so clear was unbearable. Even in the last days, she tried to be strong. She would look at me as if to say, “I am still here.” And she was. Until she wasn’t.

This morning, when I held her for the last time, I felt her breathing against me and I understood that love sometimes requires an act that breaks you open. Setting her free was not giving up. It was protecting her dignity. It was honoring the warrior she was. It was refusing to let her final chapter be defined by suffering.

When she left, something inside me shattered. Not cracked. Shattered. I feel as though my heart has been broken into a million pieces scattered across every memory we ever created. I walk through the house and I expect to see her eyes tracking me. I reach for her without thinking. The silence is heavy. The absence is physical.

Another teacher has passed on.

I often tell my students that dogs are not here for our convenience; they are here to refine us. They shape our nervous systems. They expose our impatience. They demand congruence. Walkiria refined me in ways I may not even fully understand yet. She deepened my philosophy not through words but through presence. Everything I teach about the sacred human–canine bond was not born from textbooks. It was forged in mornings with her, in training fields with her, in quiet evenings when our breathing synchronized without effort.

Today I am empty. Today I am crying in a way that feels primal and unstoppable. Today I do not stand as the composed cynologist or the warrior-poet teacher. Today I am simply a man who lost his girl.

But beneath the grief, there is something else — a profound gratitude that I was chosen to walk beside such a being. We are privileged, as humans, to share our lives with dogs. It is not entitlement. It is not ownership. It is a sacred contract. They give us everything without reservation. And in return, we owe them presence, integrity, and, when the time comes, the courage to let them go with dignity.

Popsie, my Walkiria, you were more than my dog. You were the embodiment of the space between minds. You were my mirror. My fire. My softness. My proof. My soul.

I do not know how to move through the coming days without your physical presence. But I know this: the field between us does not vanish. Energy does not disappear. Bonds that are built in truth do not dissolve at the edge of breath. You have shaped me permanently.

Thank you for choosing me at six weeks old.
Thank you for trusting me with your life.
Thank you for teaching me what intensity and surrender can coexist within the same soul.

Run free now, my girl.

I will carry you in every lesson I teach, in every dog I guide, and in every word I write about the sacred gift we are privileged to share with them.

Today I am broken. But I was blessed.

Your humble student..

Bart De Gols

I also want to extend my deepest gratitude to State Ave Veterinary Hospital formerly Newaukum Valley Veterinary Services, especially Dr. Brandy, Marissa, and every member of the staff who cared for Popsie over these last three weeks. You treated her not as a case, but as a soul. Your compassion, your patience, and your willingness to fight alongside us meant more than I can put into words. In some of our hardest moments, you stood with us. For that, I am profoundly thankful.

02/20/2026

Sometimes I ask myself who I am truly writing for when I publish articles like “In Bennie’s Memory.” Today I was reminded.

A man commented on the piece and shared the story of his dog, Charlie. What began as redness and vague symptoms was missed more than once before cutaneous lymphoma was finally diagnosed. Chemotherapy worked briefly, then failed. Charlie declined quickly and had to be put down. Only afterward did he learn that Roundup had been used in his yard — the same yard where Charlie liked to graze. “If only I’d known,” he wrote.

That sentence is why I write.

Not to create fear, but to create awareness. Cutaneous lymphoma is deceptive. It looks like allergies. It hides behind inflamed skin. And our dogs live so close to the ground, absorbing and ingesting what we decide is “safe” beneath their paws.

Our dogs do not choose their environment. They trust ours.

If even one person pauses before spraying chemicals where their dog plays, or pushes for deeper diagnostics when something feels off, then these words have served their purpose.

These are the people I write for.

You can view his comment underneath the article.

Bart De Gols

In this article, I share the story of Bennie, a magnificent German Shepherd taken by a cruel, deceptive cancer called cutaneous lymphoma. His journey serves as a chilling warning about a silent threat lurking in plain sight: the chemical cocktails of herbicides and pesticides used to create perfect,