I sometimes think the gift of social media is that half of the country now believes they have the right to tell the other half what to do. There is lots of publicity about drug addiction, but not so much about guru addiction, the idea that there is a guru for every aspect of our lives who can and will tell us what to do. Or try.

Dog training is a wonderful case in point. Dog owners spend billions of dollars each year on books, videos, manuals and workshops run by gurus who tell them how to train their dogs. Except that there are very few well trained dogs in America – the North American Veterinary Conference says fewer than five per cent are really trained at all. If all these videos and books work, how can it be that you see most people screaming at their dogs in frustration, so many dogs don’t even know their names?

How can it be that so many people are working so hard and spending so much money to study the things that other people say they can do with their dogs, but that most of us cannot do and will never do? Dog training reminds me of creative writing classes, my friend Keith the poet swears they are a shell game, a few people making a lot of money telling other people things they will never  be able to do.

I don’t wish to be a training guru or a breed snob or a rescue snob. Everyone thinks their way is the only way. Not me. I believe there are many ways. I get the most obnoxious messages every day from people who think they are gurus and who sent me mostly dumb advice that they believe with absolute certainty I should follow. I don’t care for it much. I want to be my own guru, in dog training and in life. I want to make my own mistakes, not somebody else’s, and have my own triumphs.  I am not there yet, but I am getting there.

I believe anyone can train their own dog as well as Cesar Millan or the New Skete Monks or me, for that matter. A good way to begin is by tossing out all of the books and videos and manuals and and start listening to your dog. He or she will tell you what  you need to know.

If you are addicted to one of the dog gurus, you will most likely read hundreds of pages and struggle to do what you are told to do. Then you will feel dumb and helpless and quit, maybe move on to the next guru. But the best training doesn’t come from gurus, it is internal.

It comes from a personal awareness of your life, the nature of your dog, the place you live, the environment you both will exist in, the other people around you. The gurus don’t know the details of your life, neither do I. Only you do. Somebody sent me a message the other day explaining in painful detail how their dog was biting people and attacking other dogs. What did I think they should do? How could I possibly know?, I answered. I don’t know you or your dog. I don’t know what you are like, where your dog came form, or how you live. If there is an answer to your sad and real problem, I wrote, you will have to find it.

When I go out to train Fate, I clear my head of all the things people tell me, of all the clutter. I think positively and clearly. I stay calm and am patient. I try to be clear. I am the guru, I tell myself, I know what it is that this dog and I need to do, and it will happen. Not at once, not right away, but if I persist, it will happen.

I am much enjoying training Fate, working with her, learning from her. We are becoming a team out there. In a few weeks, when her legs are longer and her body stronger, she will own the pasture out there, and all of the sheep in it. I am not sure who is training who, I suspect it is Fate who trained me. I’ll take it, as long as we get there.

If you try being your own guru for just a few days, come up with your own solutions. You may well be transformed, and your eyes will open up to the wonder of seeing  trainer as a partnership, not a scripted exercise from the imaginations and collected experience and wisdoms of others. Think of the fingerprints. Each dog is different. Each person is different. Each home is different. Start there.