It seems I’ve been transported to a different era of dog ownership. Or maybe I’m just in a different area, having grown up in the Midwest and transplanted to Southern California over a quarter century ago.
Let’s start from my beginnings. I understood as a young child that having a pet was a responsibility. And not just feeding, cleaning, maybe walking if it could be taken on walks, but also understanding the possible health issues, the parasites that could affect said animal and certainly the training of that animal. Training was as ordinary as feeding.
Why are these aspects of animal ownership so ingrained in my head, yet as a professional dog trainer, training a dog seems so foreign to current owners? I think partially because my parents were trying to scare me out of the desire of a pet with the “RESPONSIBILITIES” that would be placed on my shoulders. That’s just being honest about the parenting skills of the ones who raised me. But I also think because we’ve shifted our paradigm somehow to forgetting that these pets are ANIMALS. Our pets are now “humans” and thus the importance of training is diluted down to “my dog will pick up what it needs to learn by living in a loving home with me.” kind of attitude.
Training has been diminished to just two pet-ownership scenarios: 1) only-if-you-want-a-hobby-with-your-dog, which occurs way less often than 2.) only-if-your-dog-embarasses-or-frightens-you-with-their-behavior. And often times to get to the latter scenario, the owner has to go through many levels of complete denial of the problem before they seek help.
The problem is that training is not just a “what if” when owning a pet like a dog. It is an absolute must like water and food. It is, to use a popular word today, ESSENTIAL, and not extraordinary. The reasons that training is essential can be boiled down to one thing….dog ownership is all about a relationship with a dog…who is indeed a DOG and NOT A HUMAN. A wonderful article that explains this in a less threatening way than I do can be found here.
https://www.littledoggiesrule.com/dog-blog/10-benefits-of-training-your-dog/
If one wants to insist a dog is more like a human than biology allows, then isn’t all your human contacts about “relationship building" as well? Why would you ignore that essential part of human to human interaction? You wouldn’t. Thus with your dog, you also should not ignore relationship building or wait till you need therapy (dog training in emergency mode) to start building a relationship, maintain that relationship and make it stronger. As in a romantic relationship, as an example, it’s not just about grabbing someone off the street and squeezing and feeding and clothing them that makes a marriage some day.
On that same note, there is nothing extraordinary about the cost of dog trainers. If you were to pay a marriage and family therapist, you would expect to pay a great deal of money for each session even though you were clearly going to be spending time with this therapist on an average of once a week. And many dog trainers operate on that model…that there would be multiple sessions so the price per session is just slightly over the cost of what it takes to live & do business for an hour.
Then there are trainers like me who aren’t going to see you every week for months on end. Instead, I will train you to be your own “marriage and family therapist” to use the above analogy. So there will be few lessons and the lessons must cost more than the cost of living for that hour. (Which I have always under priced for where I currently do business.) Plus on-call tutoring for no additional charge. Plus helpful tips, articles, handouts, directions towards proper tools for training and where to get them, et cetera.
And here’s the problem with the kind of trainer that I am. Although it satisfies my mission as a dog trainer, to educate people to have a healthy and strong relationship with their dog, people do not want to invest in that tuition. I suspect there are two reasons for this. One is that people have the idea that training is an extraordinary expense…only invested if you want a hobby with your dog or you have a behavioral problem. The second reason people are unwilling to pay trainers like myself who will teach you what they’ve learned over the past few decades (4 decades in my case) is that there is a perception that people who work with animals should do so as a non-profit, out of the goodness of their heart and never expect to pay normal bills like food, clothing, housing, car maintenance or God forbid their own healthcare, let alone a vacation once every five years.
I think you get my drift.
Good dog trainers are essential; good dog training is essential.. And by “good” I mean that the trainer and the methods include expertise in dog behavior, body language, the psychological needs of a dog well beyond play & affection, and a safe place with essential nutrients to live. And good dog trainer should be educating the dog owner, not just doing the exercises for them or supervising dog owners through once a week exercises and give the dog owner little-to-no tools for overcoming/conquering the inevitable challenges of pet ownership later down the road.
That knowledge and expertise with on-call tutoring, what I call my lifetime tech support, costs time that must translate to paying bills. Dog trainers are not eternal interns. They are not non-profits simply because they love animals.
And you are not a good dog owner simply because you love animals any more than you’re a good marriage partner because you love your partner. It takes intentional relationship building with the emotional, psychological and personality needs of the other.
If you do not know how to do that on your own, then be prepared to pay appropriately for that essential knowledge.