Training is often the first thing we think of when it comes to creating harmony in our lives with our dog. But, in order for teaching to happen, a dog must be in a place to learn.
Train for your life
Have you ever been to a fancy restaurant, and not tasted a single bite because you were so worried about doing something uncouth? Or tried to take a train in a foreign country, and frantically tried to figure out how to buy a ticket, where your train was, or what to do with the ticket? Or have you found your camping trip ruined when your best efforts to put up your tent ended in a mess on the ground?
Maybe you’ve been lucky, and none of those scenarios make your stomach churn. If so, it’s likely for one of two reasons: you have all the skills and know-how to navigate each environment with ease, or perhaps you don’t have those skills but also think to yourself, “I hate camping (or fancy restaurants, or traveling internationally), so I don’t need to know how to do those things!”
In either case, you’re right. And you’re also right if you think you’d love to be able to enjoy a fancy meal or sleep under the stars, but you’re not sure how yet. Because each of these scenarios requires its own set of life skills, and these skills can be taught and learned. Ideally, the skills you seek will allow you to meet new experiences and not just to survive them, but to enjoy them.
Modern training is teaching in harmony
Here’s the thing about dog training: it’s changing. The more we learn about the rich emotional, sensory, and cognitive lives of our dogs, and the more we embrace the diverse needs and desires of their human families, the more we approach training as teaching, and teaching as preparing each dog for his unique family and life. Modern training goes both ways, too! Being your dog’s guardian also calls for its own set of life skills, and those are things that you can learn (we’ve got some ideas there! ;). So yes, training is an essential part of the Harmony Model, but it’s maybe a bit different than you might think. It’s not about drilling a set of artificial poses, like sit. It’s not even about checking off a standard set of boxes of the “six cues every dog should know.” This is about real-world, dog- and human-friendly teaching that allows everyone to meet the challenges of their modern world, prepared and relaxed.
Positive training encompasses the whole dog and your individual needs as a family.
Positive training is understanding your dog’s experience of the world and the needs of your life together, skills needed to navigate together successfully.
Signs of a training deficit
Your dog is happy, healthy, and at ease in his smaller world, but it’s time to grow that world, or expand that ease. For example, he loves touch and attention, but not nail trims. Or he is generally well, comfortable and able to communicate effectively, but like that fancy restaurant, he is unsure how to navigate a key experience. For example, perhaps your dog or puppy loves his neighborhood, neighbors and neighbor dogs, housemates and trips to the beach, but he is all over the place if you try to sit for a cup of coffee on a busy patio where he can see other dogs. Perhaps he is unable to be out with guests even though he adores them, or cannot enjoy a safe off leash area because he doesn’t yet know a solid come when called. When we find we are limiting our dog’s abilities and freedom because they are missing a skillset, it’s time to teach.
Training is about increasing freedom, yours and your dog’s, through learning the skills needed to enjoy our world safely and, dare we say it, maybe even with some sophistication and politeness from each species to the other.
So what is a trained dog, anyway?
A “well-behaved” dog IS a dog with a rich repertoire of human-context related skills. And a well-behaved dog has a larger world, since they are able to navigate more contexts with ease. Being well-behaved isn’t the same as “being obedient,” it’s much deeper, richer, and more useful than that! Teaching, or training, is a way to create harmony with your dog. Positive training produces two-way communication, builds a deep bond between you and your dog, and creates a partnership of seamless support and mutual skill.
Training is a two-way conversation
Positive training is about teaching dogs the skills they need to thrive in a world that’s not necessarily built with them in mind. And it’s equally about equipping guardians with the skills they need to support their dog through the ever changing environments we share. In order to live your best life with your dog in our world, you will have to teach him a few skills and those skills will vary depending on your dream and where and how you live.
As your dog’s trainer, or teacher, you will work to identify those missing skills, to set up the learning environment so that your dog can build richer and richer repertoires that allow her to navigate this foreign world by your side and with your guidance.
Teachers need teaching, too
Good dogs are guided and supported, and so are good teachers and dog trainers! Contrary to the popular imagination, great trainers aren’t mystical, specially-endowed communicators. The skills that make a great trainer are available to all of us. Setting up learning environments so that your dog will learn quickly and easily; choosing what you want to teach so that that, too, is likely to feel good for you and for your dog; knowing when and how to raise your criteria, to change or stop unwanted behaviors, how to manage your dog while she’s still learning and how to identify a learning vs. management situation are all concrete skills that you can learn, we can teach you how.
When you build these skills through positive training, you won’t have to wait until you’ve mastered them to start changing your life with your dog. Every positive session, even the very first, is a two-way conversation that builds trust, love and respect between you and your dog. Learning how to learn together, to speak one another’s language, to navigate a challenge as a team, and to grow each team member's skill and ability, that isn’t something you have to do before you enjoy your dog. It is enjoying your dog! When done right, positive training isn’t some class you take once, it’s a lifestyle of teaching, learning, communicating, and building a lifelong bond.
Modern dogs need modern skills
If your dog’s jumping on visitors is upsetting and maybe even upending those visitors, you can teach the skill of greeting politely by teaching her the skills of inviting wanted attention in more human-social ways. If her barking is part of the background of your Zoom calls, investigate what skills she may be missing that could help restore quiet in your home, and how she might occupy herself more quietly during that time. In other words, positive training is fundamentally about building behaviors, skills, abilities and teaching your dog in what context to use them. Stopping unwanted behavior is no exception to this rule. In order to stop our dogs from doing things we don’t like, we ultimately need to teach them new ways to act and feel around the things that trigger those behaviors. Recognizing that our dogs aren’t born understanding our modern world or human expectations helps us see where we can step in and teach. And this in turn can open up so many possibilities for harmony.
The sky’s the limit
Even big impressive skills are built of the same simple building blocks! Once you have identified those prerequisites, those skills can be taught piece by piece. And usually, those pieces are parts of other big impressive skills, too! So, the more you teach, the faster and easier new skills will come for you and your dog.
There are no limits on when you can teach a dog, either. While some skills may come faster at one stage of your dog’s life or another, all dogs can learn, and behavior remains sensitive to teaching throughout a dog’s life. Teaching or training isn’t just for young dogs, working dogs, sporting dogs, or special circumstances. Training is about increasing our dog’s ability to cooperate and cope with our human requirements, and about our own abilities to cooperate and be flexible with our dog’s requirements for safety, more freedom, more comfort and better choices.
Training is an essential piece of the harmony model, but it cannot stand alone
Training is often the first thing we think of when it comes to creating harmony in our lives with our dog. But, in order for teaching to happen, a dog must be in a place to learn. And getting there requires a few other elements to be in place. Safety, including emotional safety, and wellness are the bedrock of good learning. Communication, especially reading and understanding dog body language and understanding how to respond to it is the way we build the trust and bond that allows for teaching to take place. Enrichment, or deliberately providing opportunities for our dogs to express their individual and species specific behaviors and needs, is the “recess” that allows the pupil to come to learning fulfilled and focused. And socialization, or ease in our bigger world, is what allows us and our dogs to take what we teach into the places where they need them most, and not just have them mastered in our living room.