Ignoring Gravity!
Gravity pulls and things fall. Yes, a Mr. Obvious statement, for sure, and yet from where I’m sitting, this isn’t something everyone thinks about.
Of course you want to know what this has to do with dog training, so I will digress…
Many of my clients have dogs with behavioral issues, which is why they retain my services; unfortunately we often hit roadblocks to our treatment suggestions, because, well, they are humans who come to the session with opinions, experiences, and Google searches!
As an example, I may recommend that after careful analysis, based on the phone consultation, the in-person observations of the animal and the human that we begin by scheduling a veterinary appointment to rule out pain, and consider medication for the dog’s anxiety; additionally we’ll discuss the use of high potency food for the training and counter conditioning sessions, all of which is to remedy the dog’s ailments.
And suddenly the roadblocks appear such as, “I don’t want my dog to gain weight.”; “medications have side effects.” Or “I never give ‘table food’ to my dog.” This has been misconstrued, to mean feeding the dog from the table.
The problem with the the resistance to the treatment is that without giving the poor dog relief for their agony, not only will the problem persist, but there are too many TikTok videos of some imbecile with an electric collar on a dog, promoting quick behavior “fix.”
Like the person who wants to ignore gravity, so to speak, they do so because their feet are firmly planted on the ground, so they are less likely to experience dire consequences if they trip, however, if they were in danger of falling down the stairs, or being hit by something falling, I’m guessing their thinking might change.
Unfortunately my cautionary signs, are often being ignored, because it’s much easier to forget that things actually do fall from the sky: hail, debris and even cows if they’re near a cliff, so I’ve heard.
Please don’t ignore the signs because your dog will pay the consequences!
HAPPY TRAINING & ENRICHMENT
© Fran Berry CPDT-KA, UW-AAB all rights reserved 2025
