09/22/2026
I’m so fu***ng tired of the training industry lying to owners. And this goes for the force-free trainers AND the balanced trainers. All sides are complicit in this refusal to acknowledge the most simple aspects of reality and how it impacts dogs, the choices they make, and the lives of the owners living with them.
In 20 years of dealing with everything from the most common and mundane issues, to the most severe, the TRUE answer to why the dog engages in the problem behavior is always the same.
Because they can.
“Oh no, they can’t help it. They’re afraid, they’re unsure, they’re confused, they’re overwhelmed, they’re frustrated, they’re stressed, they’re anxious, they’re in pain, they were abused, they were traumatized…”
Nope. All excuses. We’ve applied bu****it modern psychotherapy concepts, along with highly dysfunctional narcissistic empathy, mixed with a healthy dose of cultural passivity and permissiveness to the dog training world—and we wonder why we have an epidemic of behavior issues.
I know the training industry (all of it) will despise me for saying this, as will countless owners, but here’s the truth no one wants to acknowledge:
Your dog reacts on walks—because it can
Your dog resource guards—because it can
Your dog goes after guests—because it can
Your dog fence fights—because it can
Your dog eats poop—because it can
Your dog doesn’t recall—because it can
Your dog jumps on people—because it can
Your dog demand barks—because it can
Your dog redirects on you—because it can
Your dog is being an asshole—because it can
And same goes for countless other issues not listed.
We’ve framed dogs as helpless, hapless victims who can’t be held responsible for their choices. And as long as we continue to view them this way, they will continue to struggle and unravel in situations they could absolutely flourish in.
Do we have to train them fairly so they do know what is desired and what isn’t, what they can do and what they can’t? Of course.
But as long as we continue to infantilize our dogs as victims incapable of quickly comprehending the social landscape and quickly understanding what they can and can’t do—and making decisions which serve them based on that information, just like you and me—all of our training approaches will be stupidly derailed and bogged down with bu****it excuses, requiring bu****it complexity of protocols, management, and medication as the foundational starting place. Rather than giving our dogs the credit they deserve for being the clever, crafty opportunists they are.
Because in this 20 year career, there’s been one theme that’s been strangely obvious. Regardless of the “why” of a behavior that the human mind attempts to formulate (which it can only guess at and never know, even though bu****it artists will tell you they can know), when we clearly help a dog understand what they can and can’t do, and what the consequences are for deviating from this mutual understanding, behavior issues disappear. Even without a bu****it 50 page behavior history and a bu****it help-the victim feel better/safer/happier diagnostic 6 year plan.
You don’t have to like this—most folks find reality quite unsavory, and so they refashion it to their liking. But there’s a reason I can take dog after dog after dog, and transform them. Is it because I possess magical abilities? Absolute not. It’s because I do possess an absolute refusal to deny the reality that repeatedly unfolds before my eyes.
