Dog Trainers, Man’s Best Friend, Tonto and Our Run Amuck, Throw Away Society

A day does not go by without an email from a lost soul, not like in wayward lost to damnation or those other places where fire and brimstone are the order of the day, rather misguided or ill-informed about dog ownership, especially the training part of the oft “bargain deal” dog.

Oh, don’t get me wrong about fielding these inquiries about “what’s wrong with my dog”, for most of the time it leads to an economic windfall for my way of living. If purchasing a dog where an automatic utopia where the owners and the dogs lived happily ever after, then dog trainers such as yours truly would be certainly out of business.

So, though answering the same questions over and over again does indeed become very repetitive and mundane to say the least, there is that welcomed pot of gold at the end of the rainbow when whatever I reply hits a well-sounding chord and the recipient feels that there finally will be a respite from all the negatives that they have been going through with their supposedly “best friend”.

We live in an “instant gratification” society. If something ails, then take a pill or go see the doctor and magically feel much better that someone wearing a white coat, a certificate on their wall and some shiny, cold instrument dangling around their neck comes into a room that you have been sitting patiently for over half an hour, asks you a couple of questions, listens to the beat of that conga-sounding heart of yours and walks out in two minutes flat and you leave the place feeling much better, of course with a bill to suit!

Even if nothings ails us, we hop in our car and indulge in major money exchanging by going “shopping”, even if nothing is needed, but we need to satisfy our selves by splurging as if that will make things much better. Yes, doling out the dough has a way of making us feel good, even if it only last a minute or two and then we are back with that “empty feeling” again.

Fortunately for me as a dog trainer, the same peculiarities of our out-of-control wasteful society applies to those that buy a dog. Within weeks of welcoming in their new companion, they are out buying every book and video tape on the subject of dog ownership. Not much time passes that they will eventually seek a “guru” to personally attend to their problems at hand. In my case, “seek a dog trainer” comes into focus for the new dog owners as they navigate through the uncertainties of dealing with a member of another species.

That last part of the last sentence is the whole ball of wax! People expect dogs to act like people! The new owner and old owner alike, insist on treating their four-legged companion as if it were a little human. They expect this very human-bonded entity to behave and conform to laws, rules and regulations that not many people adhere to in the first place. They expect dogs to act responsible, determine what is right from wrong, good from bad, new from old, throw away from newly purchased, cheap from expense and all those other decision making processes that even humans have a hard time getting right themselves!

Oh, the complexities of the great “throw away society”, where new is old as soon as you drive it around the block and where bigger is always better even if it doesn’t fit in your garage! Where shiny only last with the glimmer of a better looking car driving by and where that newly smell of “new” becomes old hat when the next door neighbor pulls into their driveway with a newer smelling model.

Yes, I too revel in this great world of “quick fixes” and “new is always better” to make us feel “good”. So when that call comes in for a quick fix for the run amuck canine, I take delight in being part of the “feel good movement”, providing my 3-decade plus of dog earned expertise to “good” use and of course the compensation that follows allows me to splurge in a newer smelling car every once in while.

So when the inevitable call comes in, to the rescue comes the dog trainer, wearing an official looking shirt or logo-emblazed hat, carrying credentials, certificates or the like to pronounce their qualifications on the subject; from a carrying case or bag out comes a shiny, official-looking collar and within minutes the dog is marching to the tune of the new drummer! The dog owner is impressed that there is hope for their beloved “Fido” and that finally there are happy dog days to come!

In my case as a sought after dog trainer, most seemingly wayward dogs are reigned in within minutes, with the dog owner amazed at how quick their dog learns! Yes, 99% of the time, the dog is brought under “control” in a jiffy, not pulling any longer at the leash, not jumping up, walking alongside me when ordered to and generally a well-behaved dog in a matter of minutes.

So, there is a magic pill, a cure all that ails for dogs, find a dog trainer and you have dog utopia!

Well, yes and no! Yes, there is hope for optimism and no there is no magic cure, no pop-in-the-mouth pills for Rover; only the stark realization that will soon be unveiled that there is much work to do by Rover’s owner.

The dog reacts to my authority, my sense of control, my leadership as the leader of their pack. That is how dogs see the world, either lead, follow or get out of the way. Leadership to them is very black and white with no shades of gray! You are either the leader 100% of the time or you are not the leader at all. If you don’t lead, they will!

That would not be a problem with most dog and owner situations, because there are some people that have no leadership capabilities what’s so ever, the huge problem that does exist is that dogs make terrible leaders in a human world, full of rules and regulations that most humans can not even follow themselves!

Most of my clients envision a perfect “man’s best friend” world, where the dog automatically assumes the role of Tonto and they become Kemasabe, the Lone Ranger. In case you don’t know your trivia (according to yours truly), tonto means “idiot” in Spanish, while quien mas sabe (pronounced almost the same as Kemasabe), means “he who knows most”. So, in essence the white guy ruled supreme will the Indian was a bumbling fool, as most dog owners would love to have it between themselves and their “faithful sidekick” Fido, Rover or Tonto!

Well, Tonto doesn’t do windows anymore in our 2007ish world! Rover isn’t going to do rollovers on cue without Clayton Moore doing some training! You need to buy yourself a pair of golf gloves, a nice choke collar, a 6 foot leash, and of course most importantly a qualified dog trainer that will bring back that ‘new car smell” to the dog/owner relationship and at the same time aid the dog guru’s economic status so that he/she may indulge in self gratification and go out and perpetuating our throw a way society by buying a brand new smelling car.