Have you ever asked your dog to do something, and he does the opposite? Have you ever thought “but he knows it!”. Maybe he raided something from the kitchen, and when you ask him to drop it, he swallows whatever he has. Or perhaps when you call him, he runs the other way. In Agility, you might leave your dog at the start line and say stay, but he does not stay and starts on the course before you give your release. There are two schools of thoughts to what might be happening. Is it that your dog won’t do what you tell him, or can’t do what you tell him?

In the episode you'll hear:

  • A deep dive into the impact of what you think of your dog.
  • What we can learn from Fenton in Richmond Park.
  • About what a dog’s guilty look tells us.
  • How fear and conflict affect what we are asking our dogs.
  • The many reasons dogs won’t do what we tell them to do.
  • What my dog told me about what she knew about hitting the Dog Walk contact.
  • The emotional response we have when our dog disobeys.
  • Why curiosity about our dog changes our emotion.
  • About the rule of three I use when training my dogs.
  • The worst-case scenario of a dog getting something right after being punished.
  • The bottom line on contributing to a better relationship with your dog.
  • How to start building a history of dog training success.
  • About believing that if our dogs could, they would.

Resources: