Every dog trainer I know has had the same two dogs. They may not have come in the same order, they may not have had the same exact issues. But every dog trainer I know has had these same two dogs. For me the evidence is clear, these Two Dogs are the formula for creating a dog trainer.
The First Dog is a difficult one. It’s the dog that enters our lives with a handful of challenges we are not really prepared, or equipped to take on. They look at everything we have ever done with any animal, laugh in our faces and demand we do better. We are commanded by virtue of love for this dog, or by sheer stubbornness, to rise up. We are charged by this dog to figure out how to better communicate, to teach better, to understand deeper and more meaningful connections with another species. Everything we thought we understood is turned over as we try to desperately to make break throughs with a dog who challenges us every step of the way.
This dog is in every respect a direct assault to our dunning Krueger effect. We come at them with such confidence, we are certain this dog will be easy, simple, or even proof that we can train dogs. And they come back with a resounding: “wanna bet?” They are challenging in ways we could not anticipate, and in ways that will forever shape how we look at future dogs.
Sometimes it’s a behavior concern; aggression, reactivity, anxiety. Sometimes it’s a method of learning , of coexisting that is beyond what we’ve ever attempted. A dog with too much energy, too much emotion. Or a dog with too little patience, too little cooperation. No matter what the issues, this dog is always the catalyst for incredible change.
The First Dog is the dog who says “whatever you think you know, you don’t” and rather than give up, or given in, we buckle down and do the work. We learn more, we start to understand more. We adapt while deepening knowledge and somehow reach homeostasis with this dog. They are the dog who appears on our logos, in our social media, and our stories of how we’ve handled a problem before. They are the obvious Dog that Shaped Us, and we are grateful for them in ways we will never be able to fully express. And when they leave us, we look back at them fondly and our memory runs fuzzy about how difficult it was to learn how to live with this dog.
The Second Dog is the opposite of the first. This dog is patient, he is infinite with his capacity to simply forgive us our foibles. And there are a lot (there always is in teaching.) We are clumsy and a little over enthusiastic, and this dog simply rolls with it. He is the Try Hard of dogs, who guesses what we mean even when we are not sure of it ourselves. And some how this dog, who insists on working with us and trying so very hard for us, convinces us that we are magic. He leads us to believe, with only the evidence of the numerous ways in which he has compensated for us, that we can do anything, teach anything, train anything.
This second dog is our hero, and our heart dog. He lives in our chests as a shining example of what we are capable of, though the truth is often it’s what he was capable of. We take the evidence of this miraculous, loving dog as proof we are unstoppable as trainers. We can train anything, after all look what he can do! He is just as important as the first dog to shaping our careers.
You see the First Dog forces us to grow, forces us to change and evolve as trainers. And the Second Dog convinces us we can do anything, lets us grow wings to soar and try new things. And every dog trainer I have known has both of these dogs in their journey. I have had these exact same two dogs. I am forever grateful for them both, because they were my greatest teacher, and strongest cheerleader. With out them I would not be here today as the trainer I am, as the behavior expert I am, as the human I am. Thank you to the dogs that shaped me.
In Loving Memory of Bohdie and Sullivan. The dogs that made me.