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Dog Training – It’s About the Relationship, Silly

Michael Baugh CDBC CPDT-KSA

We’ve come full circle. Good dog trainers have always known that teaching is about relationships. It’s not so much “leadership,” (Do it or else). It’s more about cooperation (Let’s work on this together). We’ve known this even though for a while it looked like we forgot.

To some extent or another, too many of us became fix-it trainers. Dogs became a list of problems to solve. Our business coaches told us that’s what clients wanted–results, nothing more. We knew they were wrong, but we changed our business plans and turned our web sites over to them (at no small cost). And fix-it we did. We stopped the crummy behavior from happening and taught the shiny new behavior instead. We packaged it up as solutions and modifications, like we were tricking out cars. All the while, we still knew. This is about the relationship, silly. The human, the dog, the team.

It’s all come full circle. Relationships are the thing again, and rightly so. Maybe it was Covid. I learned a whole new way of living with my dogs, as you probably did too. It drew us closer. It taught us new lessons. Deeper ones, I think.

Take notice. The world slowed down, at least a little, at least for a little while. I could (and did) spend hours just watching my dogs. There was time to notice what they paid attention to. I saw what they did more often and in greater detail. I even watched them sleep. And here’s the other thing. I noticed them noticing me. They watch us, follow us, and listen to us far more than we give them credit for.

Communicate. There have been several studies that suggest dogs understand our meaning far better than we understand theirs. They read our facial expressions, our voices, and even our casual gestures and accurately interpret our intent. We know this, if we are paying attention, because of how they respond. They have their own gestures and expressions. It’s been called a language of sorts, and we can learn it. This is the bedrock of training, mastering the give and take, the quid pro quo, the rap-and-riff of our interactions with dogs. It’s like good improv. A little something from me, a little something from you. A conversation.

Turn towards, not away. All we have to do is to lean into this truth. Dog training is not a top-down endeavor. It’s a back-and-forth. Our dogs have intention. They are thinking and feeling. Psychologist John Gottman taught this concept in marriage. When our partner reaches out (Gottman calls this a “bid”), the more we turn toward them to engage and exchange, the richer our marriage will become. There is a parallel here for all relationships, including the learning relationship we have with our non-human friends. Your dog, I guarantee it, is always bidding. He’s exploring his agency in the world, gambling, engaging, experimenting. Turn towards that behavior, towards your dog, not away from it. Connect. Collaborate. Build shared understanding. Add fluidity to learning. Create trust.

This is not ethereal pie-in-the-sky thinking. It’s foundational. There is certainly a time and a place for fixing problem behaviors. There’s a place for teaching cool skills and even tricks (tricking out your dog). If you’re focused on the results alone, though, you will struggle. In fact, often the struggle is all you will see. I wonder sometimes why it all feels so difficult. What if we saw our dog instead of the struggle, this other life in the room? What if we were open to the conversation? I see you and I smile and I know you know what that means. I see your bid–for attention, for engagement, for a chance to choose this or that. How could I miss it? You’re here, breathing and thinking and real.

I turn toward you. How could I not, you delightful, crazy, adorable, sometimes problematic, dog?

Michael Baugh teaches dog training and behavior in Houston, TX. He specializes in aggressive dog behavior.

Tad Goodbyes

Michael Baugh CDBC CPDT-KSA CSAT

His story began on my birthday, March 26, 2011, months before I knew he even existed. A young woman who worked at a vet clinic was driving a back road in rural Southeast Texas when she saw an animal, a dog maybe, or what was left of a dog. I won’t post the pictures. He was eaten by hunger and mange, bent under death’s shadow. The young woman scooped him up and took him to the clinic where she worked. The vet speculated that death might still be near, a day, hours if it took him that night. The woman gave him the simple honor of a name. If he didn’t make it to morning at least he’d leave with that. She called him The Abandoned Dog, the acronym – Tad.

Her name was Tiffany Dieringer (pronounced like Derringer). It’s McKinley now, but she still has the pistol tattoos. When she saw Tad the next morning he was very much alive. He’d survived the night as he would the hundreds of nights that followed. Tiffany is a consummate storyteller, and tell it she did. She wrote about Tad and shared his pictures and before long he had thousands of followers worldwide. She raised money for his medical bills and then started a charity in his name for other dogs. Tad recovered. He grew stronger. The hard lines of his hips and ribs disappeared under muscle and fat and fawn-colored fur.

Weeks turned to months and as his physical wounds healed the emotional signs of Tad’s trauma became more apparent. He barked at people coming in the clinic. He charged and threatened. And eventually he bit someone. He bit hard. It was late Summer when I first met Tad.

I work with aggressive dogs. Tad’s case was not particularly difficult nor was it particularly easy. The truth is his case should have blended in with the hundreds of others. It’s important work, of course, especially to my clients. But, it’s work nonetheless. Just the facts. Here’s the plan. I’ve got your back. Text me tomorrow. I don’t fall in love with my clients’ dogs. Not most of them. Not many of them. None really like Tad. Maybe it was his unfolding story of redemption, the longing we all have for second chances. Maybe it was the fame. So many people around the world loved him and here I was with him, up close, in the room. Whatever it was I remember the moment and I wrote it down the day it happened. “We all know how easy and wonderfully alluring it is to fall in love with Tad online. It is something altogether different to be with him in person. For just a few seconds Tad tucked his head into my arms and pressed his forehead against my chest. I scratched him behind the ears and kissed the top of his head.”

We don’t know what happened to Tad or how he ended up on that rural road dying. We don’t know for sure but it was bad. Tad’s body healed but the injuries to his psyche, some of them at least, were permanent. Tad was often slow to trust and fast to react. There were setbacks. Bites. Days when Tiffany questioned again whether the night ahead would be his last. Aggression in dogs can be fatal, rarely to humans, too often for the dogs themselves. Tiffany cried. I cried. We looked across that threshold more than once and damned if that Abandoned Dog didn’t always pull us back. Tad did what so many folks thought he would never be able to do. He grew old.

Tad settled in as we all hope to when the years start to add up. Tiffany got married. She had a daughter. She started her photography business and left the vet clinic (she took many of the photos on this web site including the banner photo of Stewie). We remained friends, though I hadn’t seen Tad in far too long. She said his last year was the best, no blow ups, no bites. It was a hard year for the rest of us, most especially Tiffany. Covid. Personal shit, and too much of it. Hard all around except for Tad. Somehow, some way, he’d softened and just in time.

It was a week ago as of this writing, November 4th 2021. Tad, slower and heavier, settled down to sleep. Who would have known he would settle so gently under death’s shadow. Who could predict, no one really, that this would be the night he would not survive. It was a mass that ruptured, probably cancer. The blood moved quickly from where it is supposed to be to where it is not. Quickly. It was fast. When Tiffany woke up he looked like he was still asleep. Like nothing had happened. Like the story hadn’t ended.

Epilogue.

Tad died a good boy, an old good dog. He slept and then died as if in a dream that was nearly impossible to imagine those many years before. He died in his own home in his own sleeping spot warm and safe on a cold Fall evening. He died not far from the people he loved, not far from the woman he loved most of all.

Yes, You are Learning as Much as Your Dog (and That’s Okay).

Michael Baugh CDBC CPDT-KSA CSAT

I love it when clients have ah-ha moments, even when they are ones I’ve heard a million times. One of my favorites is “You’re training me more than you’re training my dog.” I laugh along with folks when it comes up like they are the first person to say such a thing. Then I reassure them. Of course you’re learning a lot. You’re learning as much as your dog if not more. There’s no shame in that at all.

And …

Your dog’s behavior is not your fault. Just because you’re learning as much as your dog right now does not mean you are to blame for his misbehavior. First, you didn’t know what you didn’t know – and here you are now learning to do better. Second, your actions are not the only factor in play. There are lots of other things going on that contribute to your dog’s behavior. Third, most of the stuff you are doing is just fine and not harmful at all. This is especially important to remember in cases of aggressive dog behavior and dog separation anxiety. There’s way too much human shaming going on around these behavior syndromes. You aren’t loving your dog too much, or paying him too much attention (or too little). There is no evidence to back up old tropes that your persona as a leader counts for much either. There is some research that correlates harsh training methods with owner-directed aggression. But, even with that in mind let’s all take a breath. Lift that shame off your shoulders. You’re learning.

You do matter. Make no mistake. “Your dog’s behavior is not your fault” is not the same as “You are irrelevant.” Your actions definitely influence your dog’s behavior. In fact, we are counting on that. Our dogs look to us for guidance and feedback. When we play this right we can teach our dogs some pretty amazing things. And, in cases of aggression and separation anxiety we can influence their behavior and their feelings. Let that sink in. How you set your dog up to succeed matters. How you behave matters. That information, for me, is so empowering. Heck yeah, I’m training you as much as I’m training your dog. I need you to know how important you are to make all this work. Without you fully engaged, I don’t have a chance at all for a successful outcome with your dog.

I’m one of those odd trainers who likes his human clients as much as I like their dogs. I’m also one of those trainers who trusts in the process of behavior change grounded in solid science. I know it works. And yet, every time I see it work I’m thrilled like it’s the very first time. I get my own ah-ha moments when I see the dog’s behavior change for the better, learning new patterns and coping skills. Just as thrilling (even more, maybe) are the times I see the light bulb turn on with my human clients. There are moments when you can tell they just “get it.” They reinforce their dog’s behavior before you can even point it out. They are routinely setting their dog up to succeed on their own. They are working the process because they, too, know how the process works.

“I’m learning more than the dog,” they say. “Absolutely,” I reply and think – Thank you. Thank you for your hard work. I’m so proud and so grateful. I’m not lying when I add this next bit. Sometimes (many times actually) I glance at their dog and I’d swear they are thinking the exact same thing. Thank you.

Michael Baugh teaches dog training in Houston TX. He specializes in aggressive dog training and dog separation anxiety training.