I ran into a good friend yesterday, her arms were covered in scrapes and bruises, she was embarrassed to tell people her two hunting dogs had pulled her to the ground while walking when they went after a truck. One of them, she said, was just bad, the other went along. They almost got to the truck. She was in anguish, she had lost a beloved dog to a truck. Tell me about your life, I asked, surprising her, and she told me she had grown up in chaos, her mother had been gravely ill, she remembered little about it.

That’s it, I said, that’s your training problem, and she looked at me as if I were made but then got curious. We do what was done to us, I said, or what we wish was done to us. At a glance, they know if they must do what we ask, or if we don’t believe it, have already given up. Our training histories are instant replays, living videos of the way we were raised, loved, or not. Our dogs are faithful receptacles, mirrors, extensions of us, they become what we need them to be, what we know, what they smell and see. If you really don’t want your dog to pull you to the ground, it is very simple to make them stop.

Ultimately, they will become what you need them to be, if you wish it and will it. It is no surprise to me, not now, that none of my dogs have ever run off, attacked another dog, destroyed any of my possessions, it is not because I am a brilliant trainer, or even a good one. It is because it is not what I wish for them, not what I project onto them. The thing I most love about dogs is that they are a reflection of my own growth and evolution as a human.

To live well with them, I had to confront my anger, my impatience, my distraction and frustration. When I ask something of them, I look them in the eye and speak aloud – you will do this, I insist upon it, picture it will insist that you do it, will figure out how to communicate what I want to you. To have a better dog, you have to stop blaming them for what you have failed to communicate to them. It is never about them, it is always about us.

Training a dog is not about obedience or domination, clickers or whistles, videos, manuals, classes or  high voices or elaborate hand signals, not to me. It is about me, my past, my will, my self-awareness, my own creativity and will. My dogs look at me and take a whiff and in an instant they know if they have to do something or not. It is not always that simple, but it is always simple. It’s about us, not them,