10/18/2026
I think we found our starting point with Mugsy today!
Itās always a little harder to find that starting point with dogs that are past the early puppy stage and didnāt get a proper foundation early on. This is where what I call āInvestigative Dog Trainingā comes into play. You have to dig deep into your dog psychology knowledge, try different methods, figure out what clicks with that particular dog, and build from there.
One thing Iāve learned over the years is that you have to train the dog in front of you, not the dog you expected to have in front of you. Every dog is different, and what works for one dog might not work for the next. You can have all the knowledge and experience in the world, but if you arenāt willing to adapt your approach to the individual dog, youāre going to hit a wall eventually.
Mugsy is only nine months old, so heās still very much a puppy in a lot of ways. But once a dog is past about ten weeks old, youāre no longer working with a completely blank slate. Theyāve already started forming habits, associations, and ways of responding to the world. The older they get, the more established those patterns can become.
With very young puppies, you can build their foundation from the ground up using treats, luring, and positive associations. With dogs past that early puppy stage, youāre working with a brain that already has experiences and associations behind it. The tricky part is that I wasnāt there to help create those associations, so I have to figure out how that dog thinks, how he learns, what motivates him, and what methods make sense to him. Sometimes that means trying several different approaches before finding the one that works.
You canāt just walk into a situation expecting to follow a predetermined training plan and assume the dog is going to fit into it. You have to be willing to adjust, problem-solve, and sometimes throw your original plan out the window entirely. The dog in front of you is going to tell you a lot about what you need to do next if youāre willing to pay attention and listen.
Itās not always the easiest or fastest process, but itās a big part of why Iāve had the success Iāve had over the years.
This is something I think gets overlooked in the dog training world. A lot of trainers who train the way I do, or at least try to anyway lol, donāt talk much about this side of the job. People love seeing the finished product and the success stories, but they donāt always get to see the trial and error, the problem-solving, and the work it takes to figure out how to get there.
Good dog training isnāt about forcing every dog into the same training program. Itās about understanding the dog in front of you, figuring out what makes him tick, and finding the best way to help him succeed.
The success is the part everybody sees. The process of figuring out how to get there is the part that makes you a better trainer.
