This is Day Three for “Listening To Dogs: How To Be Your Own Training Guru,” and it is atop almost all of the e-book lists on dog training and care. It is provoking the kind of discussion I hoped for. The dog world is rich in love and connection, in anger and righteousness and I have always seen this idea, this book as a call for a spiritual path in our lives with dogs and other animals.

Having a dog is not about anger, judgement, not about dogma and orthodoxy, that is one of my major causes of unease with contemporary dog training. Spirituality is inner-directed, not dictated from above with fixed notions of thought and feeling. The Internet promotes connection but it also promotes anger and self-selection. We tend to listen to the people who agree with us and get angry at everyone else and dismiss them, because we no longer speak to them directly. My life with dogs and my other animals has been a profoundly spiritual experience, one that has helped me move away from anger and fear and impatience and frustration. And from judgment. To train a dog, to love a dog, is to listen, not talk, to be curious, not all-knowing, to be patient, not demanding, to be encouraging, not coercive.

If you love a dog more than yourself, you will not tell other people how to get one or live with one. Or how you must train one. You will celebrate the life of the dog, the idea that the relationship is personal, individual, rich in connection and communication. For me, this idea does not come from books or ideologies, tricks or tips. It is an internal process build on the foundation of self-awareness and understanding, listening, learning, changing and experimenting. Together. I do not see this idea often in the training world, filled with manuals and instructions, do’s and dont’s. Can those be helpful? Sure. But as an aid, not a replacement for taking responsibility for you and your relationship with your dog. Some people have already discovered that “Listening To Dogs” is a spiritual book, an empowerment book, not a training book. It is, I hope the other path – away from arrogance, anger, the corruption of money, controversy and the always inhibiting feeling of being made to feel foolish and incompetent. Y

We live in a world of experts and consultants, and we are losing respect for the power and worth of the individual. This is evident to me in the animal world, and especially when it comes to training. You are the best trainer of your dog, you have the best ideas and the best chance of reaching him or her, and accepting this is the first step towards the true meaning of training: to communicate and live together in the world in harmony and connection.