Anyone could be forgiven for imagining that my dogs spend a lot of time being trained. My TikTok, instagram and Facebook are filled with them doing all kinds of things. I’m a professional trainer. What else would one expect?

In fact, they mostly act like animals. We share a life together. Am I ‘the boss’? I am the human of the household, and we live in a human based society, so that puts me in a unique position of power. I make all the rules and decisions. I choose what they eat, how much and when. Whether they go to the park or go swimming. When they get a bath. I choose what kind of health care they get, what sports they play, what toys fill our home. Whether or not they’re aware of it, there is nothing they do that is not, in some way, under my control. So yes, I’m the boss.
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I don’t have to assert myself just for the hell of it, I don’t have to make them do things just to prove that I can. They bend enough to fit the rules I think are necessary for safety and sanity.

My service dog spends long hours being a model of manners when we are out and about. When she’s at home she can take off her work clothes and relax. More than one guest to our house has been surprised to find out that she’s a first class counter surfer.
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My dogs walk politely without pulling. They have to, I need to walk five dogs together on city streets on a daily basis. They don’t bolt out open doors, or bark when the bell rings. But they beg from the table, they jump on people to great them, they wrestle in the living room, knocking down things in their way. I get annoyed at that, just enough to say something cross, but apparently never enough to teach them not to. We are family, and we treat each other as such.
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My dogs are my work partners. We make our living together. I know that on set I can rely on each dog to give 100%, to do everything that I ask and to keep on working for as long as I ask. Maybe your dogs don’t have an actual job, in the sense of getting paid for their labor. But taking part in dog sports is just as much of a career, just as much of a partnership, and our dogs give so much of themselves when we ask it of them.
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There are some trainers, and some training philosophies, on both the punitive and purely positive ends of the spectrum, that want us to demand that our dogs uphold certain standards of behavior at all times. They warn us of the importance of consistency. That to be a good dog partner we must make sure that we always insist on the same actions, regardless of the situation. Sit means sit. If you don’t, they warn, everything comes apart. But dogs are family, and family is fluid, changing, forgiving.
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My dogs mostly act like animals. And yet they have never failed to live up to my expectations.