The Most Important Lesson I’ve Learned about Dog Training

Michael Baugh CDBC

I have been in the dog training business since 1999. My first client lived in a high-rise on Lake Erie in Cleveland. Her Bichon would steal bits of paper, socks, and underwear, then race around the apartment with his prize. I’d learned enough to help, not bad for a beginner. But I had no clue about the powerful lessons that were still to come.

For years, I read nothing but books about dog behavior. I lost count of the courses, workshops, and seminars, both online and in person. I pursued graduate studies, going deeper and deeper. Learning thrills me.

There were mistakes. Painful losses. Tears. Early on, a large dog sent me to the ER. I sometimes rub my fingers over the scars without thinking. My body remembers.

From all of that — the study, the money spent, the hours invested, and the decades of experience — one lesson stands above the rest. Dog training is about dogs, yes. Teaching dog training is about people.

Prizing the Client

I love the awkward truth of that phrase. Psychologist Carl Rogers coined it as part of his work on unconditional positive regard. As teachers of dog behavior and behavior change, we must care for our human clients as much as their dogs. Rogers suggests that to teach well and to be of real help, we must love our clients.

We do not have to agree with them. But we have to find meaningful common ground. A genuine human connection is not optional. It is the foundation.

Paying Attention Comes First

Dog training should not be a list of problems to solve. We show up with knowledge and experience. We often arrive with solutions ready. But we are not there to teach our agenda.

Listen deeply. Pay attention. Let us discover what our client truly needs and how it fits into their real life with their dog.

Caring for the Relationship That Matters

Teaching dog training is about relationships. It begins with the relationship between trainer and human learner. We prize the client.

More importantly, it is about our client’s relationship with their dog. This is why we teach with intelligence and compassion. It’s why we teach positive reinforcement methods. They protect and grow the relationship between people and their dogs.

Positive reinforcement works. It is love in action.

Love your fellow human, your prized client. Pay attention to them and to what they need. Care for their relationship with their dog.

From the kind woman with her small, fluffy white dog to now, this work continues to nurture me. I can think of no more meaningful way to spend my mental, emotional, and creative energy. I turn sixty this year, nearly half of it spent helping people live better lives with their dogs. When I think about that, I smile.

What a gift. What a joy it is to begin again each day.

Michael teaches dog training in Houston, TX. He specializes in helping people with aggressive dog training.

What Dogs Teach Us That Could Save Humanity

Michael Baugh CDBC

I’ll cut to the chase; it’s empathy. Empathy is a relatively young word in the English language. Psychologists in the early twentieth century needed a translation for the German word, Einfühlung. which literally means “in-feeling.”

When we are learning with our dogs, we can lose touch with our empathy. Our work becomes mechanical, like a list of problems to solve. At worst, we find ourselves in conflict with our dogs. We don’t understand their motivations. We aren’t able to “feel into” their experience. The human mind hates gaps, so we fill the gaps with stories we create about our dogs. Stories about a perceived opponent are never nice. They are always problematic. We cast our dogs as stubborn, dominant, malicious, defective — less than the fictional idealization of what a dog should be. Empathy flies out the window, and we all end up suffering for it.

If all this feels familiar, it’s because humans are devolving into a species bereft of empathy. That’s a pretty stark statement of opinion. Hear me out. If we go with the earliest definition, empathy is existing “in feeling” with another being, “feeling into” their experience. It’s not “I know how you feel.” It’s certainly not feeling sorry for them. It’s about taking the time to be present and aware of another living being. Empathy is about sharing a feeling together, even if we don’t experience it in exactly the same way.

Learning each other’s stories nourishes empathy. Interestingly, humans as a species became less violent after the invention of the printing press. The hypothesis is that we became able to share our stories and empathy grew. People in faraway places read and learned about other people, their tales and fables, their fears and fantasies. We connected. That was the early dream of the internet, too — that it would connect us and feed our empathetic souls.

That didn’t happen. We are even more divided. And we read less. We chatter with our ingroup and demonize the outgroups, whoever they are. Empathy suffers. We suffer.

Sit. Down, Stay. Touch. We teach and learn with our dogs. Most of us by now know we can each even teach our dogs to relax on cue (we can learn to relax ourselves, as well). Why not empathy? Empathy is a learned skill. Our dogs can help us. They can teach us; we know this. They can save humanity (that may be bold, or not).

How do we feel about our dog? How do we feel with our dog? Now, feel into your dog. I love that phrase. Sit with your dog — feel. They’re angry sometimes. That concerns us. How does it feel to our dog? Feel in. Our dog is silly, cuddly and playful. They tremble at storms and loud voices. Can we feel that with them? Empathy is hard. It’s daring — risky. Grief is the price we pay for love. Queen Elizabeth said that. Empathy is our love in action, for our dogs, for our loved ones, for strangers from faraway places.

Here in Texas when the floodwaters come, and they come often, we all seem to embody empathy. We feel together. People help each other. No one asks who voted for whom. We are all just people. Empathy seems to recede, though, when the land dries.

How do we keep empathy, grow it, nourish it?

Practice. Practice with your dog. Cal me crazy, but practice. We learn empathy through experience. Feel it. Feel into it. Your dog will think it’s cool, trust me. Sit quietly with your dog’s being. Play, teach, and learn. Ride the emotions and pay attention. Be present. I dare you.

Then, take what you’ve gained and share it with a fellow human. Open your heart and feel deeply with a loved one. And then (breathe) think well of others — even ones you may not know. Move into the feeling. Listen presently. Trust your open heart. Like me, this is a human being. It’s okay to be afraid. Sit with that feeling together.

I double-dog dare you.

Michael Baugh teaches aggressive dog training in Houston, Tx.

Change (The Nature of Dog Behavior)

Michael Baugh CDBC CPDT-KSA

Our dogs’ behavior changes. That’s good news, and it is bad news. Behavior changes in ways we want it to. Think: training. Our dogs’ behavior changes in ways we don’t want it to as well. Think: why is he suddenly barking at visitors?

Our dogs are always learning from us, from others, and from their environment. Changing behavior is inevitable. It is part of nature, like gravity and the rising sun.

One of my favorite authors, Octavia Butler, wrote: “The only lasting truth is change. God is change.” (Parable of the Sower). That might not set well with some of my readers. So, think of it metaphorically. Change is the one constant, from animals to plants to the landscape itself. Everything changes. For believers, it would be hard to ignore the hand of God in all that. For nonbelievers, it is awe-inspiring nonetheless.

Change, specifically the promise of changing behavior, inspires my work with you and your dogs. Of course, change is frightening sometimes. (Why is this happening? It hasn’t happened before.) I choose to look at change with wonder. (Look at what is happening now. This is new. How cool.)

“All that you touch, you change. All that you change changes you.” That’s Octavia Butler, too. We influence change because we are part of this living world. We certainly influence changes in our dogs’ behavior. I see that every day in my work and in my own home. It’s a marvel if you think about it.

My dog Charlie is a champ at coming when called and he loves lying on his mat. He’s also taking on air travel, long road trips, and hikes up desert rocks (no small challenge for a three-legged dog).

On the surface, it looks like nothing more than cues and treats. That’s part of dog training, yes. But zoom out. Change begets change. The little ways we set up our dogs’ world can have huge positive effects. How can we change the settings we create for them? What slight changes can we make in our own behavior to make learning easier for our dogs? Where can we change things to ensure our dogs’ success?

Join me this new year in embracing change. Some of it is scary. I get it. Much of it, most certainly the behavior change work we do with our dogs, is waiting with joy and surprise. Teach. Love. Teach again. Love some more. Marvel at the change. Our dogs are changing. We, too, are changing.

“God is Change — Seed to tree, tree to forest; Rain to river, river to sea; Grubs to bees, bees to swarm. From one, many; from many, one; Forever uniting, growing, dissolving — forever changing. The universe is God’s self-portrait.” Octavia Butler.

Michael Baugh specializes in aggressive dog training in Houston, Texas.