I love training dogs, for me it is not about obedience. It is a spiritual exercise in partnership and communication. I am blessed with the knowledge that I am not perfect, but when I train a dog, I make sure to apologize to them for being dumb. I’ve had Red with me for nearly three years. He never rode much in a car before he came to me, I take him everywhere now. The command for jumping up into the back seat is “Truck Up,” and he gets the command, but often hesitates by the door before jumping.

This has frustrated me many times, in the time-honored manner of people who train their dogs but don’t think much about it. Red is always eager to please, and smart as a whip. Why so much hesitation?, I have wondered. I sometimes sound like my father, “don’t be a sissy!” I usually just yell – “c’mon, let’s go,” or other incomprehensible commands of frustration and impatience – you know them, I am sure. I just never thought about it.

But it has puzzled me, Red is so obedient, so eager and responsive, I  couldn’t figure out why he had trouble hopping into the car. Perhaps, I thought, he was just frightened about it, as he seems to be on  linoleum floors. The answer has revealed itself. He is a lot smarter than I am.

Yesterday, it occurred to me to think about it. And I had an idea. Red is a herding dog, and he has been trained – by others and by me – to react to where he is standing in relation to me. For me to “come bye,” to move in a clockwise direction, he needs to be on my left. For him to move “away,” he needs to be on my right. He always moves in relationship to me, herding is a ballet between the human, the dog and the sheep. Only the sheep have no say in any of it.

Almost every time Red has hesitated to jump up into the car, I have been standing by the driver’s seat, on the other side of the door from me. To him, I was standing in the “away” position, but asking him to move in the “come bye” position, the way he was trained.

So I moved to his other side, to the right of him. And then said “truck up.” He knew what I wanted him to do, he jumped right in, and we did this a half-dozen times and he jumped in instantly each time. I am blushing as I admit to you that it took me more than two years to think about this, Red is such a good dog, and this seemed so minor, and I am such a distracted and chaotic mess in my head, I just never thought about it.

And this is the beauty and wonder of training. ( I even wrote an e-book about it, “Listening To Dogs“)Most dogs are happy to comply with our many demands, the problem is we too often do not make ourselves clear. Then we blame them for not understanding our own confusion and laziness. We need to take responsibility for ourselves, not always blame them, good trainers almost always say trouble is usually the fault of the human, not the dog) Red does not really separate the movement commands in herding from the other commands of movement in life, nor should he, that is too complex for most dogs, and he is very responsive and bright.

On our walks, he is always circling in front of me, waiting for me. Those are herding gestures also. When I applied this to the car door, he got it instantly, and I should have gotten it sooner. Training a dog is a wonderful thing, I have learned a lot about it, I love doing it. Frieda was perhaps my greatest triumph, Red came to me well-trained, but we have done a lot of great work together and I am proud of that also.

I think the point of the car door is important, and not lost on me. Training never stops, it is part of the lifelong conversation we have with our dog. I see my dogs as partners in my life, not as obedient disciples. I don’t want a relationship scarred by yelling, confusion, irritation and frustration. Red and I have very little of that, and today, we have even less. The lesson of the car door: think, be patient, be clear.