It recently occurred to me that most people don’t really want to train their dogs. Sure, almost everyone wants their dog to be reasonably well behaved, but few people are really that interested in training.
This should not be much of a surprise, and yet, to me—a person with a lifelong interest in animal behavior, whose canine companions were her best friends as a small child and who once pursued a horse-training career—it is an actual revelation. The thing that I most love thinking about and talking about and writing about and doing? Most people don’t give it much though at all, no matter how many dogs they have. It seems that most people more or less teach their dogs to sit and call it good. Any other behavioral expectation they have of their dogs just works itself out as their dogs accompany them through their lives.
This idea occurred to me after my car started making a funny noise, and I had taken it to a mechanic for diagnosis and repair. The mechanic quickly identified the problem and fixed it, and as he was explaining the issue to me, and warning me about what to be alert to in the future—and my eyes were probably glazing over—I had this thought: I don’t want to know about how a car works, I just want it to work! Most people aren’t interested in learning theory and the timing of the dopamine release and whether a dog is intentionally signaling aggression when his hair stands up—but I am fascinated by all of those things and can’t even resist telling you right here and right now that he’s not! The mechanism by which a dog’s hair stands up is an involuntary reflex; it’s a result of how the dog is feeling! He can’t make it happen on purpose! I’d love to tell you more—what it actually does mean and what you can do to help your dog display this less—but you probably don’t actually care, like me and my car.
Maybe I am wrong—and at any rate, I’m likely taking this thought to the wrong people: You guys are probably more like me than the average dog owner. You wouldn’t be reading this post if you weren’t interested in dogs and dog behavior and helping our dogs be happy and to live harmoniously with us. But do me a favor and think about everyone else you know: Do your friends and neighbors actually train their dogs, or seek to know anything credible about dog training?