The Dog Can't Fix What We've Got

by Adrienne Mesko

Scrolling through Facebook a few months ago I came across a video of a woman feeding her dogs canned food from a spoon for obedience in her living room. There were a number of dogs in a row on her couch and she was letting them come up one by one, have a few bites and return to their place on the couch. It was as simple as that. The comments were where things got interesting. The woman was vilified and called a control freak. She was accused of not feeding her dogs enough dinner, not letting them be dogs, not caring about their feelings. Some of the comments were very nasty and personal, remarking about how her husband was probably cheating on her. It wasn't just a couple of comments, it was many many comments that insinuated that the woman was not fit to be a dog owner. That the obedience itself was a cruel thing to do to her dogs, and that perhaps she should be forced to eat the same way.

The American lifestyle has changed an incredible amount in the last 40 years, with much of the change occurring within a relatively small amount of time. The demands on both individuals and families have increased exponentially, we've seen our living costs skyrocket while our salaries have stayed much the same. Single income families are no longer as common, and many people are working 2 or more jobs to make ends meet. We are exhausted, we are stressed, and at the end of the day we have very little to give back to others around us. We see close knit communities becoming more and more rare. There are always exceptions, but in general people are more disconnected from each other than they have ever been. Despite how many of us are linked on social media, we are further apart than ever before. Surface level connections lead to misunderstandings, bullying and feelings of further loneliness.

I think for many, a dog is a piece of their American dream. The dream that if you work very hard, your efforts will pay off and in the end you will have enough for you and yours, and even enough left over to enjoy the company of a dog. There is a powerful innocence that lies within the image of a dog living well with it's people, a faithful companion to family and friends. It speaks to the core of what is missing from our lives today. Loyalty, wholesomeness and contentedness.

The present day dog faces a much more difficult to navigate life as compared to a dog 40 or 50 years ago. We have very little time to give to our dogs. Laws have changed, populations have increased and in many areas dogs do not enjoy the freedom they once did. The exploitation of modern dog ownership and it's many opportunities for commercial sales – the message that 'all you need is love, and these things we have for sale' has changed the way we perceive the role of dogs in our lives. We often chose management over leadership and we are limiting our dog's opportunities to make good or bad choices and be coached through them. We just don't have the time, and the commercialized myth of 'love is all you need' sets us all up for failure, and only adds more stress to the problem for both dog and owner. So instead of using training techniques to guide and teach, we make the dogs prisoners of our own lack of understanding and use crates, gates and kennels more than ever before. For many, anger filled corrections eventually come, ill timed and without proper guidance of a trainer.

There is a very important place for good dog trainers in the lives of dog owners today. Real trainers that have paid their dues, studied and honed their craft and consider themselves lifelong students of the process. These are tricky times for dog trainers that bring real solutions, as their work often challenges those false perceptions and can highlight relationship imbalances people may not be ready to see. These trainers act as advocates for dogs that have found themselves in living situations that do not fit what they are at their core. Often, like a veterinarian administering an injection, there is temporary discomfort for the long term health of the dog. When a cute video of a woman having her dogs wait their turn for treats makes people wish for horrible things to happen to the woman, you know there's something deeply broken in how we view the role of dogs in our lives. Making real change is never comfortable. A good trainer often makes the most progress when he is pushing both dogs and owners outside of their comfort zone. What makes us so uncomfortable with the idea of dogs being treated as dogs is the idea that somehow they deserve a higher status because of the incredible value we place on them in our lives. Dogs went from being in the background of our families lives, just doing their thing, to the sole focus of many peoples' lives today. Thunder shirt wearing, calming pheromone spritzed, confused animals placed on pedestals. The term fur mommy and fur daddy seem innocent enough, unless you are a trainer dealing with the down side of treating dogs as human children, no longer honoring what they truly are and forcing them into roles they can't possibly fulfill.

One really good example of this lies in the amount of emotional support animals and fake service animals. The amount of fake service dogs out there is truly alarming to see. As a dog trainer, a large portion of my incoming requests are from people looking to 'turn their dog into a service dog, so they can take it everywhere with them.' Explaining to them what a service dog really is and needs to be, the requirements and the amount of training that will be needed for any potential service dog is always a conversation ender. They will insist that their dog is actually a good dog at heart, and that it really shouldn't be too difficult to get it done, and that they read somewhere online that all they needed was an identification card. Very commonly they would rather not invest the time or money, and will move on to another trainer or attempt to do the training on their own. In many cases, these animals are out in public with what appears to be little or no training. Sadly, there are often disastrous consequences.

We look to our dogs to fulfill so many empty places in our lives. Where we once connected with people, we now fret over our dogs and don't leave them alone enough. We excuse poor behavior in dogs if they were rescued or somehow mistreated in their life, if they are nervous or shy. We give them treats and food all day long, often much more than they should have with little understanding of what is being reinforced. No one is telling us that it's actually really important to just leave your dog alone sometimes. A strong bond with your dog is a beautiful thing, codependency is not. A healthy relationship is one in which both parties can stand well on their own, but are even better in the presence of one another. 

Dogs are frustrated, misunderstood and people are spending lots of money and not getting the help they need. We ascribe everything to fear or separation anxiety, when it's our neediness and lack of connection as humans that are often creating these perceptions of problems. It's is no coincidence that the way we perceive these problems in our dogs is based on egocentric values. “Our bond is so strong, he can't possibly handle being without me.” We want our dogs to be our emotional support systems, part of how we interface with the world, but we are not taking into account the dog's needs at all. Their needs are distinctly different from ours, and lack of understanding this will often cause a problem dog. We turn to more management and more love to fix the problem, but what we are missing is that the problem is often inside of us. That like an oxygen mask on an airplane, we must secure our own first before we can help those around us. Something is broken within us, our dogs can't fix it, and it is time we stop asking them to.